Different Drum
by Neale
Summary: A bit of a spinoff from the series and my "Where Do We Go To" 'verse, starting in the 8 month hole at the start of season 3.
1. Chapter 1

**Yeah, well, life got in the way of trying to write for a while and the only time I've spent on here was trying to find some good works from the past to read (there are quite a few good ones, but unfortunately many have been dropped just as they were getting really interesting :O(**

**I have been amused, though, to discover that the only ones to appear to actually like Devon and Morgan are "dudes" (not men, a very important distinction between the two, there is), many of the girls have a great time ridiculing them for the same reasons I do ;^)**

**This one's not quite AU, but more of a divergence in the force (I mean path) from both the series itself, and my "Where Do We Go To" 'verse.**

**Spin-off from the start of Season 3, starting in that 8 month hole they left.**

**Usual disclaimer for the land of litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed unless I've made them up.**

When Chuck arrived at the training facility in Prague on the first night, he was only given a hour to settle himself into his room before he was grabbed without a word and bundled into a SUV to be taken off to a secret meeting (when it was at an undisclosed location with unknown parties, secret is as good a descriptor as any). As soon as he was in the SUV, the man riding shotgun turned and shot him with a tranq dart (well not actually a tranq per se, in that it left him conscious and aware of what was going on around him, even though he could hardly move, anyway it incapacitated him for the trip).

In the back of the SUV, he was freaking out, myriad possibilities (all bad) went through his mind as he looked out the window at the dark countryside flashing past, remnants of Fulcrum had captured him to reek retribution on him for his role in their demise, that new organisation (the Ring?) had grabbed him to use him against the USA, some other organisation had grabbed him to sell him off to the highest bidder, the CIA had grabbed him to strike a blow against the NSA's rising dominance in the US "intelligence" community... but the problem was (as far as he could see), was that while the possible scenarios were pretty much endless, what he COULDN'T see was any option of him getting out of this with a good outcome, or to have much hope of getting out of this alive for that matter.

One thing that WAS obvious was that whoever was in control had specified that Chuck was to have no idea of where he was going, because they stayed on back roads all the way, making sure that he never saw anything other than minor road signs (presumably in Czech, but it was impossible to read the very few small road signs that he noted as they flashed past in the dark), and they didn't pass a single sign that indicated what town or towns they may be heading towards.

Eventually they entered a country estate via a rear service(?) gate and headed up to the dark chateau (well he presumed it was a chateau, it was certainly big enough to be called that). When they pulled up at the rear of the chateau, the driver doused the lights and the area was shrouded in darkness, so it was a surprise when the door suddenly opened and he was dragged out. All he could see was large shapes around him, and that the two men(?) holding him appeared to be wearing night vision goggles (what little light there was dimly showed the shape of the headgear they were wearing).

When they had him out of the SUV, the men holding his arms half supported him as they dragged him into the chateau, with others ahead and behind, presumably they were all wearing NVGs as everything was pitch black (or it was to him anyway). Once inside, he was taken into a room and deposited in a chair, he was injected with something before his "escort" left the room and closed the door.

Once they'd left a spotlight came on which lit up the area around him, and it quickly became obvious that the injection they gave him was the antidote for the drug they'd given him earlier as his head was clearing and he was regaining control of his body rapidly. He couldn't see much outside of the circle of light around him, but there appeared to be people in the shadows on the other side of the room. The fact that no-one was saying anything just added to the growing sense of doom that Chuck had, and the longer it went on, the more certain he was that he wouldn't get out of this.

After about 10 minutes, Chuck's head was clear and he had control of his body again, and that was when another spotlight came on, to show General Beckman sitting in a chair directly in front of him. She smiled at him and said "Hello Chuck", which freaked him out even more, because she seemed to be being friendly towards him, and that was something he'd never experienced before. She started in on the explanation of why he had been brought there the way he had, saying that they had to discuss something that no-one back at the training facility could not know about. Chuck was trying to pay attention to her, but the figures shrouded in darkness on either side of her were freaking him out, and he couldn't concentrate, so he interrupted her to say that he wasn't prepared to continue with this without knowing who else was in the room.

The General gave him a considered look (actually looking more impressed than annoyed for once), and after a brief delay said "Very well Chuck, this (waving to her left) is the technical director for this project." Another spotlight lit up to show Chuck's father sitting in a chair, smiling at him. Chuck's cry of "Dad!" was met with a wider smile and "Hello son." The General gave him a moment to let that soak in and then waved to her right and said "And this is the operational director for the project." This time when the spotlight showed the person in the chair, Chuck was too stunned to say a word, but after a minute or so he managed to tentatively ask "Mom?", at which her guarded smile broadened and she jumped up to rush across the floor to him. Chuck jumped up to meet her and swept her up into a bone crushing hug, hanging on for dear life. The others let them have a few minutes for their reunion, but when he'd set her on her feet again and she was holding his face, looking up at him and whispering "My baby boy.", the General cleared her throat and asked "Mary, are we right to continue?" She tried to use her normal voice of authority, but a quick look her way showed that she (like Stephen) had tears of joy in her eyes at what she'd just seen.

Once all the players in the room had been revealed, the normal room lights came up, and they pulled the four chairs together for easier discussion. The General led the discussion, but one thing she made clear up front was that the organisation was actually a council, made up of the three of them, plus Roan Montgomery, Bryan Mills and Emma Burdon. Chuck looked at her when she said Roan's name, and she had a strange expression as she nodded (he noted the smirk his mother gave at that but tabled any follow up on that for a later discussion). The General looked at Mary and Stephen briefly before adding that, at that point, the council was the organisation, but there would probably be three or four additions over time, these being the children of the council members, starting with you (extending a hand towards Chuck as she did so), and possibly others if they could be trusted.

They talked through the night about why Chuck had been brought in the way he had and what they wanted him to do. Stephen explained abut the development of the Intersect and what had gone into it (what he knew, anyway, others had added many things into the databases that he didn't know about, and he was sure that he would have serious issues with), and that they had to fix the Intersect 2.0 for him ASAP, as he'd coded timebombs into it to prevent it being an on-going threat (he'd learned his lesson in regard to trusting others in the spy world when Bryce Larkin had shown his true colours and sent the Intersect to Chuck). He also told Chuck about some of the things that would remain in the Intersect to disable it in given circumstances, such as the "moral override". He had coded triggers which would prevent the Intersect being used for actions which were wrong (for want of a better term) these were linked to the emotive triggers of the brain and hence used the Intersect host's "moral compass" to determine which actions were acceptable, and which weren't. The fact that many in the spy world didn't appear to have any real form of moral compass at all was the reason that he coded the timebomb (essentially a logic bomb) into it. Stephen looked Chuck in the eye and told him that, without the patch to disable the timebomb (which he would be given before he went back to the training facility), the Intersect timebomb would cause catastrophic damage to the brain within 1-12 months (depending on the host's retention capacity and the frequency of the "moral override" being activated, as the override reset the clock for the logic bomb's triggers whenever it was activated).

Chuck's mind was reeling from what he was being told, not just that he had a timebomb in his head THAT HIS FATHER CREATED, but also what functions that were coded into the Intersect and how far they differed from what his father was planning when he designed it. The hardest thing for him to take, though, was the fact that they told him that he HAD to reject Sarah when he met her at the train station in Prague to run away together. He tried to say that he didn't know what they were talking about, until the General played the video of their discussion in the Castle where she asked him to run with her and told him where to meet her. As he sat there with his head in his hands, stunned at what they expected him to do to the woman he loved, he barely registered the argument raging between his mother and the General in the background, the only words that stayed in his memory (even though he didn't pay attention at the time) were the ones the General used to finish the argument "Do you think I enjoy doing this? I'm a mother too and how do think I can face Emma, knowing what I'm doing to her daughter?" Without looking up from his hands, he couldn't see the anguish on her face as she said this, but he could hear it in her voice, and he could hear the sobbing from her and his mother as they stopped screaming at each other and held each other.

When everyone had recovered enough to talk, they went on to explain that there were too many eyes on Sarah at this time, due to the amount of recorded evidence of their feelings for one another (Chuck looked at them, confused, so they spend the next half an hour or so playing just the high points of what they had both done and said to show the depth of their feelings for one another), so Sarah's reaction had to be believable when he turned her down if the plan was to have any hope of succeeding. Chuck's mother came to kneel in front of him and promised that as soon as it was safe to do so, they'd sit down with them, and anyone else necessary (glancing at the General and getting a nod) to explain to her what they'd made him do, and the reasons behind it, but for now, Sarah had to be able to sell being rejected and heartbroken, and her feelings for him would show through if she knew the truth of the matter. Chuck agreed reluctantly (very reluctantly) and his parents knew that this would cause a rift between them that was potentially even worse than the one their perceived abandonment of him and Ellie when they were young had, but the stakes were too high, they had to risk losing their son for the greater good in this instance, they had seen the evidence (that they hoped to be able to keep from him) showing the true depth of depravity of the organisations that they faced, and they needed him to be everything he could be to save the world from what they faced.

For the rest of the night, they explained what they needed him to do (other than rejecting the woman he loved without being able to tell her why) throughout the training and afterwards. Basically, they needed him to get the most he possibly could out of his training at the facility that had been set up for him while appearing to be failing due to intersect problems. They would be stacking the deck as much as possible by salting as many scenarios as possible with stimuli which would trigger the moral override, but Chuck would have to play it to the hilt while scraping every possible benefit he could from it. While Stephen and Mary didn't want to show Chuck what they were up against, they had agreed that he needed to see enough to grasp the importance of what they had to do (and to shore up his resolve enough to make him betray Sarah when he saw her at the train station), so they showed him a subset of the evidence that the council was working on to determine their direction, they omitted most of the more horrifying things that had kept all of them up at night in recent times, just showing him enough to convince him of the need to go up against this enemy.

By the end of the night, Chuck was drained, what they had shown him horrified him, and he wasn't sure that he'd be able to do what they needed him to do, especially with Sarah. Those parts were enough to knock him on his butt, but seeing his mother for the first time in twenty years (with no explanation yet as to why she'd left and hadn't contacted them), and getting the Intersect patch to disable the timebomb feature took enough out of him to make him sleep all the way back to the training facility. When they got back to the training facility, he was still out of it, so he was just carted in and deposited in his bunk, where he woke up a couple of hours later when the alarm went off.

**A/N: Well, that seems like a logical point to wind up this entry into this new 'verse. Be interested to see what people think.**


	2. Boot Camp

**Oh great, Stalker Boi's back (anonymously, of course). Should have known that commenting on the recurring theme in the great stories from some of our fine lady scribes would have started another rant, can't comment about "his" crushes, now, can we? After all, "he" apparently owns this space and no-one is allowed to express any opinion that differs from "his". Lets see what "he" can find to whine about in this one, shall we? There are a lot of great people on here, but the self righteous tools who keep acting on their belief that they have the right to attack anyone who doesn't share the same opinions as they do tend to ruin it for a lot of us.**

**NB: While this is a divergence from the "Where Do We Do To" 'verse, I'm using most of the back stories that I created for the characters in that 'verse, because they work for me, anyway.**

**Also, just saw something in a write up on Fast and Furious 7 that makes me think that one of the writers may be a Chuck fan, as the villain is called Deckard Shaw, not quite Decker and Shaw, but pretty damn close in my book ;^)**

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed unless they're original here.**

For the first day of training, Chuck had absolutely no problem with projecting a pathetic image, as after the night he'd had and getting back just before dawn, he was struggling to stay awake, let alone perform. Even though his body wasn't performing, though, his mind was logging and cataloguing everything he was being told to do, so from day two he attacked his training with a vengeance. He didn't realise it, but he was going about it the same way his mother had, working himself to utter exhaustion every day, then getting up early to go at it again in the morning. As a result, he was developing faster than anyone had since Sarah had done her training (and unbeknownst to either of them, some of the records that Sarah set had stood since his mother's time in training). He was forging ahead, but between the staged triggers and his own efforts, the Intersect results were looking like a total failure, and his overall results were looking mediocre as he was faking being extremely unreliable throughout, he'd ace everything in one session, and then totally tank on the next two, half of his instructors were already giving up on him, while the others were trying to work out how to eliminate the erratic results.

As he got closer to the date when he was supposed to meet Sarah at the station, though, his performance dropped off as he was agonising about how he could go through with what the General and his parents insisted that he HAD to do. He went through the motions, but it was a good thing that he was supposed to be failing, if he had to succeed at that point he would have been in big trouble.

When the day came to meet Sarah at the station, Chuck was a mess, the General knew what he would be going through and had scheduled a briefing before he was due to go to try and shore him up enough to get through it. When he went into the meeting room with her, he tried to talk her out of the need to destroy Sarah this way, so with the level of screening she had on the room (with Orion's assistance), she put the General aside and showed him the mother that he vaguely remembered her mentioning to his mother, she reminded him of the atrocities that he'd been shown to be perpetrated by the enemies that they needed him to be prepared to go against, and also all the evidence that they'd shown him that proved that neither of them could hide their feelings for one another. In the end she knelt in front of him as Mary had done and earnestly assured him that they needed him to get this training without the enemy knowing what he had achieved if they were to have any hope of defeating them, and that the only way that could be screened from the enemy was if Sarah went back, destroyed because he had rejected her. She conceded that the Enforcer Sarah who existed pre-Chuck may have been able to pull off the act, but he had made that Sarah disappear when she fell in love with him, so they had to go through with this now. She looked into the eyes of the broken man in front of her and decided to give him another piece of the puzzle, in hope that it was enough. She asked him if he remembered the other council members' names that they'd told him that first night, at that he nodded slowly, dazed, confused and not getting the point. When she said that Emma Burdon was Sarah's mother (this caused another flashback of her crying "how do think I can face Emma, knowing what I'm doing to her daughter?" at his mother), Chuck looked at her in shock and she nodded grimly before saying that, as hard as this was, even Emma had agreed that it was necessary for their success. She looked into Chuck's eyes and assured him that they wouldn't put Sarah through this any longer than absolutely necessary, and as soon as it was safe to do so, they would all, her, his mother, Emma and anyone else that could help, would help him explain it to Sarah and that they forced him to do it. She held his gaze as she earnestly stated "We will fix this!" After she told him all this she asked him whether he could go through with it, and he nodded, both grim and tentative but showing that he would do it no matter how hard it was. At that she gave him a few minutes to compose himself and then finished the "briefing" and sent him back to his quarters.

When Chuck saw her at the station he faltered again, looking at the face he loved, how could he do this? At that point the evidence that they'd shown him flashed through his head and he swallowed his anguish, he could only that she would be able to forgive him when the truth came out. He walked to her and tried to play his part, just thankful that the stilted, forced responses he gave to her hopeful delivery of what was in front of them (and her kiss) were consistent with him doing a hard thing, because if he'd had to make a polished delivery he would have been totally screwed. As he watched the expression on her face crumple, his heart screamed at him that this was WRONG, but he pushed it all down and turned to stumble away from her after he apologised.

The entire council sat at their screens around the world and watched in real time as two young lives (the children of three of them) were being potentially destroyed for the greater good. None of them would forgive themselves if they didn't manage to come through on the General's promise to Chuck to fix it. One thing was certain though, they were watching the video feeds that the CIA and other organisations were using to watch the two, and no-one would doubt that what they saw was real, especially when they compared it to other footage of the two that was on file.

Chuck went straight to his quarters and changed into workout gear as soon as he returned from the station and then headed to the gym. From that point, he was like a man possessed, pushing himself to breaking point constantly and hardly talking to anyone for weeks at a time. He was enough in control to keep up the inconsistent results and appear an overall failure, but when he wasn't intentionally failing he was a machine, to the point that they were finding it difficult to find undamaged sparring partners for him due to the punishment he was giving out (not killing blows, just unstoppable battering of anyone who stood against him).

When it first reached that point, the General had to come in to give him another "briefing" to remind him that they couldn't afford to show their hand, and that he needed to back off to stay under the radar unless he was given one of the agreed signals that the person he was with was one of their's. Once again, she put the General aside and talked to him as a mother to address what was troubling him, but when he let out the anguish about what he had to do to Sarah it was no surprise. It was an incongruous sight, the tiny woman standing in front of the towering warrior and holding him as he cried, but neither of them cared, he desperately needed it, and while he hadn't been told as yet, she had first held him on the day he was born (he was a lot smaller then though).

The rest of Chuck's training continued as planned, keeping to the same type of one step forward, two back, two forward, one back movement that made him appear totally erratic and unreliable while he was in fact advancing at a great rate, they'd specifically scheduled that his workouts be slated more towards endurance than strength to minimise bulking up while giving him the maximum benefit, so he still looked more like Bruce Banner than the Hulk (at least when he was dressed, the hard chiselled limbs and torso he had now rather gave the game away when they were on display, but in his normal clothing he didn't look that different from what he did before, the extra muscle was notable, but not glaring). They had told him that he would have to take a lot of physical punishment if he was to have any hope of pulling this off, and the training plan fitted into this, in that if his opponents were pounding on denser muscle mass, they would do less damage, though he also had to stretch his acting skills to pull off the expected reactions to getting hit like he did (and so often).

To protect Chuck (and the plan), the council had managed to salt the training facility with key trusted personnel to cover up what was actually happening, principal among these plants were the primary medical personnel monitoring him, and his physical training and martial arts instructors. This was to to cover up the muscle mass (and density) that he'd developed, his true physical condition and his skill levels in these fields, which were necessary for the act to be convincing.

After six months of training, the council decided that he couldn't extract much more benefit from it and compiled the official results in a way that showed that it was all a waste of time and money, so that he was ejected from the training facility and sent home in disgrace. While they were making those arrangements they also had the council members in Europe return to the States, so that they could all sit down with Sarah and explain to her what had happened, and why.

It was less than a week after Chuck had returned to the USA that Sarah was called into a briefing with the General, Chuck had already tried to contact her but she was on a mission at the time and couldn't handle trying to deal with him, so she threw her phone into the pool (watching that on long distance surveillance worried the council, especially her mother and Chuck's parents, as it showed how hard the reconciliation would be).

The "briefing" for Sarah was a complicated process, first she "ran into" Bryan Mills (who had saved her on a mission when she was part of the CAT Squad and was the best father figure that she had) and they talked for a while. Then she arrived at the briefing room to find her mother there, and after their initial teary reunion (in truth a much tearier one than her mother had expected, and she saw just how much Chuck had done to bring her little girl back), the others began to arrive. She expected the General, of course, but when another woman arrived to be introduced as Agent Frost, and was smiling at her fondly, she started to realise something was going on. Roan Montgomery arrived and sat with the General after greeting Sarah. When Orion arrived and sat with Frost, she began to suspect that she may know who Frost actually was. Bryan entering the room confirmed that she was being played somehow and she looked accusingly at her mother, ignoring the General and the other legendary spies as she attempted to force her mother to tell her what is going on. It was when Chuck walked into the room, though, that she snapped and stood to leave. Emma hung onto her arm as she begged her to hear them out, and the three older women and Chuck were all in tears as they convinced her to stay and see the evidence that was used to make Chuck do what he did.

They weren't in there all night, like they were with Chuck that first time, but it was at least 5-6 hours, and they showed her everything that they'd shown Chuck, as well as all the arguments that were used on him, and then they pulled out their trump cards, the recordings of them at the train station, excerpts from the recordings of the meetings that Chuck had with half of the council outside of Prague, and footage of his meetings with the General at the training facility (most notably the one they had on the day that he met her at the station). Sarah knew her Chuck well enough to know that what she was seeing from him in those videos was the absolute truth, and that he had fought tooth and nail against doing what they called on him to do.

Once they'd convinced Sarah to hear them out, they started by telling her that they had convinced Chuck that he had to go through with the rejection of her at the station, and asked her to view all the evidence before she made a decision about what they had done. Sarah agreed begrudgingly, and sat there with her mother clinging to her hand. She could see that Chuck wanted to hold her as well, but he sat, forlorn, across the table awaiting her inevitable (to him) rejection and departure. Because Sarah was going to be a harder sell, they start out with the reams of CIA and NSA video and audio footage that was on file which showed that their love for one another was relatively common knowledge to both agencies. They explained that, because of that, and the fact that the agencies were expecting them to try and run (showing her the video of their discussion in Castle where she proposed it and told him where to meet her), and the enemies that they were facing, they had to convince Chuck to reject her at the station, both to protect the two of them and to have any hope of truly winning against their enemies. After a brief discussion they told her that they would present the evidence that they'd used to convince Chuck, but first played her the videos from the train station to show that, as hard as it was for the two of them, the mission successfully convinced any watchers that he had rejected her and she was totally heartbroken (at this point Sarah almost broke her mother's hand as her grip tightened and tears streamed down her face, Emma soothed her and assured her that the reasons would be shown, and that it would be all right as Chuck stared across the table at his love, with the same tears streaming down his face and his mother whispering to him that they would make this right).

When Sarah and Chuck were ready to continue, the next several hours were spent showing her the evidence that they'd shown Chuck to convince him that this enemy had to be beaten to save innocent lives around the world, as well as the additional evidence that they'd accumulated over the past six months while Chuck was in training. Even an agent of her level who had seen and done what Sarah had been made to go through for the past ten or eleven years was shocked and disgusted by what she was being shown, and horrified by what they had to go up against. Once they had done that the General looked Sarah in the eye and told her that, even with this evidence, it was very hard to convince Chuck that he had to do what he did, and proceeded to show her the footage of how he'd argued against it in their meetings, and how he'd broken down in their meeting afterwards (out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Mary reach out to squeeze the General's arm as the footage of her holding Chuck as he cried played).

Once all the evidence had been shown, and the tears had receded sufficiently for discussion to continue they went on, with the General summarising that it was obvious that no part of this had been easy for Chuck to do, or their parents (waving to Emma, Frost and Orion) to go along with, but they'd forced him to do it because of what they were facing and the fact that the only chance they had for victory was if Chuck could realise all of his potential as the Intersect, and an agent capable of working alongside Sarah. She looked at Sarah, for the first time dropping the General and talking to her as the mother she showed with Chuck a few times, and asked whether she could accept that Chuck really had no choice but to do what he had to do, and whether she could still love and be with him? Sarah looked across at him with tears (and love) in her eyes and quietly said "Yes", the fact that she had never stopped loving him was the reason why her wounds were still so raw, and she had seen the overwhelming evidence that had been used to convince him that it HAD to be done, along with how hard he'd fought it and how it had effected him afterwards (and still did, looking at the anguish in his eyes), so she wasn't going to lose the love of her life for having to do the right thing, especially when that was a large part of the reason she loved him so much.

When she said yes, Chuck jumped up and ran around the table to sweep her up into his arms, it was only after several minutes of frenzied kissing that it registered to Sarah that a) Chuck was still holding her in his arms as if she weighed nothing, and b) those parts of him that she was holding onto were rock hard muscle. When Sarah looked up at him and asked "What did they do to you?" they were still too tied up in each other to notice the looks that were going on between the others in the room, until the General cleared her throat and asked "Would you like to see what you were put through all of this for Sarah?" Sarah looked over at her, and then back at Chuck before softly saying "yes" and gently pushing on Chuck's arms to indicate that he should put her down. Chuck set her down (gently and reluctantly) and they sat to watch what they were about to be shown.

The footage that they were shown was not the entire six months of heavy training that Chuck went through (obviously), but it showed the highlights of the punishing training he put himself through, and the amount of physical punishment he took (and gave out) in the various martial arts forms he was using in the sparring, it also showed the highlights of the incredible breadth and depth of the other training he went through over those six months, they'd slipped far more into the sessions than most at the training facility knew about, as once he mastered the levels in each field (while pretending to fail), the actual sessions he was doing were advanced to the higher levels (or entirely different subjects), even though he was officially rehashing the more basic levels until he got it right. They had crammed years of intensive physical and technical training into the six months that he was in that facility, all the while convincing the other watchers that he was an erratic failure. In addition to this, his father was controlling what was going into the repeated Intersect updates that he was getting at the facility (using the same smoke and mirrors tactics so that the authorities thought they knew what he was getting when in fact it was far more), so additional data and skill sets were being added all the time.

At the end of the presentation, Sarah was just staring at Chuck, for all her faith in him and his abilities, she couldn't get her head around what he had done in the six months that they'd been apart, the predominant look in his eye throughout much of the footage (for those who knew and loved him enough to read it) was that of a man possessed, desperate to rip everything he could out of it. She reached up and gently pulled his head around to look her in the eye. When Chuck saw the question in her eyes he just said that he wasn't going to waste the pain he'd caused her, if he was forced to hurt her that way that he was going to make it worth something. That led to them being in each other's arms for a while longer until the General once again cleared her throat and asked Sarah if she was prepared to join Chuck, join them, in this fight? Sarah didn't break Chuck's gaze when she softly said "yes" again.

At that point, they decided to fill their two newest members in on who the council were and where they came from, once again the General (as the spokesperson of the council) led the way. She explained that she had met Mary in the '70s when they were both young agents, trying to make it in a very misogynistic spy world. Because they were women, no matter what they achieved they couldn't get the men to take them seriously or treat them as anything other than playthings to screw (at that point she looked over at Bryan with a smile and said that he was about the only exception to that rule, Roan started to say something but she fixed him with a look that everyone in the room knew all too well and told him that he was just as bad as the other men in the spy world at that stage, and wasn't much better now, which shut him up quickly), after the interruption she drew a breath and continued, saying that she and Mary had stayed in contact to support each other and maintain their friendship (much like Sarah and Carina did), so she was around throughout the period when Mary was assigned to protect Stephen, they fell in love and started their family (she was more than a little wistful when she said that she was off on assignment when Eleanor was born, but she was there the day that Chuck was born, and even got to hold him, but fixed Chuck with a look and told him that he was a lot easier to handle back then).

At this point Mary spoke up to explain to Sarah how her mother came into the picture, Sarah saw Emma tense up and knew she was about to find out something that she didn't know about her mother. Mary explained that even though her primary role was a protection detail for Stephen, she was still called into other local missions when they needed qualified agents, and on these missions she met an analyst who had been blackmailed into working for the agency when her husband's con went South and he abandoned her. Mary quickly allayed Sarah's fears about her mother being preyed on by agents, conceding that there were plenty of agents hitting on her, but from the start the extent of her abilities were so apparent to the higher-ups that it was made quite clear what would happen to anyone who interfered with her or her ability to deliver, so she was protected from outright coercion or attacks. Mary went on to explain that she and Emma became friends, and that was extended to Diane when they were in contact with her, and that they had helped Emma disappear after her father took her and left. They also tried to keep Emma off the radar so that the agency couldn't reacquire her after she left.

So that was the situation in the late '80s, Emma was in hiding, but still in contact with them, she had Stephen, Eleanor and Charles and Diane had finally given in to Roan and had Josephine (she looked at Diane who nodded, indicating that she'd fill in those details), and she and Diane were still friends with with Bryan, as the one good man in the spy world (she and Diane both smiled at him with that, getting a grin in return). At that point Mary drew a breath, the next phase of the saga was her's to tell and it wasn't going to be easy, she squeezed Stephen's hand and smiled wanly at her son before she continued.

In the early '90s, Orion's main project (what was to become the Intersect) reached a point that was both amazing and extremely dangerous, at Langston Graham's insistence, one of the scientists on Stephen's team was imprinted with an alternative personality to run a mission in Russia, but something happened to the image that was imprinted into him, and he became a violent psychopath who was uncontrollable. The program/persona that was imprinted was supposed to be hard coded to terminate after six months, so Mary was sent in to extract him when he came out of the persona and get him home, but it didn't work out that way, when she got there she found that he was obsessed with her and would hardly let her out of his sight. When the six months came and went without the program terminating and none of the manual termination triggers worked when she tried them, she tried to get out but someone in the CIA had tipped Volkoff (the imprinted persona) off that she was a CIA agent so she had to pretend to turn and stay with him to live. She looked at Chuck at that point and said that that was why she had to leave him and Eleanor, and why she hadn't come home, because Volkoff had world wide organisation that would track her down and lead to them if she'd come home, the best she could do for now was to keep in contact with his father and the others via the secure channels that his father set up, and sometimes (very rarely) sneak away for short periods for meetings like this one and the one they'd had outside of Prague.

The General took over the story again at this point, explaining that little had happened through the '90s, Stephen (Orion) had got back in contact with her when he got his head straightened out a little (Chuck's look at his father got a wave that said that they could discuss that at another time), and with Bryan's help they managed to re-establish contact with his mother. Then in the late '90s they got word that Sarah's father had been arrested and she had been blackmailed into joining the CIA, like her mother had been. She looked at Sarah at that point and told her that they tried to get her out of that, but the people controlling her (Langston Graham primarily, but there were others as well) were too powerful, so all they could do was track her mother down to let her know and keep her in the loop, and provide protection and assistance when they could (at that point Sarah turned to look at Bryan, who gave his usual little grin, and got a smile in return).

The next significant event was when Chuck was sent the Intersect and was dragged into the spy world by the CIA and NSA, the General chuckled when she said that it was a shock to her when she found out who the CIA assigned to track Chuck down was, but it was the first piece of good news that she'd had in a hell of a long time. She also explained that she hadn't assigned John Casey because he was a killer (though he was that), she selected him because he was a good and honourable man who would do the right thing when he could, he was also the best protection that she could assign to Chuck. At that she basically wound up the history as they had a reasonable idea of what had happened after that, just adding that she hadn't enjoyed treating either of them the way she had, but everything to do with them was being watched at all times (as they'd seen), so she had to keep up appearances because her every action was being recorded.

The other thing she had to bring up was the council itself, given who she was talking to, she didn't belabour the fact that the people there, represented the cream of the crop in the spy world (for the most part, she added, looking at her partner), so as well as looking out for their children, they had been keeping a close eye on what was developing in the spy world with the assistance of Orion's technological mastery, and what they were seeing was increasingly disturbing. Around the time that Chuck was dragged into that world against his will, they had decided that they couldn't afford to watch as they let the world went to hell, so they decided to band together to try and do something. She looked at Sarah at that point, say that they had been planning on enlisting her assistance when the need arose, because she was the best of the new breed, no matter what she may have been told or made to do, but then Chuck came on the scene and she was assigned to him so without any immediate need to bring her on-board, they kept an eye on the two of them and hoped that they would be able to protect one another, as they had been doing.

She hesitated and then went on to tell them the other part of the story that Mary had mentioned, as stated, she had gotten pregnant to Roan in the very late '80s and had a daughter, her family was very powerful and had big plans for her (and so did I, she admitted), so she was sequestered away in a remote location for the pregnancy and gave the baby up for adoption to a cousin of her's who couldn't have children, after that her family got any mention or inference of the pregnancy and baby purged from all the records and she went back to pursue her career, but she and Roan stayed in Josephine's life as an "Aunt and Uncle" until she was in her mid-teens and it came out that her "parents" weren't actually that, so when she had a meltdown they told who her real parents were, and they had managed to have a proper relationship with her from then on. She drew a breath and went on to say that unfortunately she decided to follow in her parents footsteps after that, so she was in the spy game, and it was extremely difficult to try and keep her safe without letting her secret out (which would make her a target, of course).

They wound up the session with a question to Sarah and Chuck as to whether they were ready to take on their roles as a part of the council and fight the enemies that they were up against, when they looked at each other and both said "yes", she reminded them that they had to keep up the act of being rejected and at odds with each other until the scenario could be logically presented for them to reconcile, and they nodded again. With that they wound up the meeting with Stephen giving them the gear that they needed to establish secure contact with everyone, and some other gadgets that they could use, and they broke up after Chuck and Sarah had managed to say a proper goodbye to their mothers (given that Sarah still couldn't go near her mother safely yet, and Mary had to go back to Russia with Volkoff).


	3. Family Business

**Two brief points for those that care, the use of parenthesis is often used here for the thought processes going relating to the character currently being focused on because, well, that's the way my mind works and it's easier to get it out that way. Also, Taken's Bryan Mills' rescue of Sarah was in What's New Pussycat? if anyone's that interested.**

**Usual disclaimer for the land of litigation, no rights to any characters not created here.**

Given that Chuck was supposed to be a defeated, mopey loser now that he had been sent home in disgrace, he gleefully (on the inside) contrived to lose his job as a nerd herder and embraced the role of stay at home loser. Of course, because this was purely for his "cover", and as soon as Ellie and Devon left each day he'd be off to run to the gym or dojo to keep up his training levels. He was also taking on missions from whoever was the Council's current Operations Director (while the General had stated that his mother had that role, in fact it was shared between her, Sarah's mother and Bryan Mills, depending on availability and the focus of the operation), the prime sticking points of course were that he had to be back (complete with fake beard etc) before Ellie or Devon got home so that he could be laying on the couch, playing the part of true couch potato when they walked in.

Another skill he was practising at every opportunity involved looping or substituting the internal A/V feeds, before slipping out and evading all the external surveillance equipment to get into Sarah's room via a window to spend time with her away from any surveillance, slipping away before dawn to get back into his room and reset everything before they were discovered. They had talked through the plan using the secure phones that his father provided first, but it was still one hell of a surprise for her to be woken up by kisses being trailed down her neck. Even with the footage of his training that she saw, she never would have believed that he could traverse the outside of her building, enter via the (locked) window and crawl into bed with her, without her waking up until he was ready. After that first time she made a point to stay awake to catch him (as a matter of professional pride), but even awake she didn't sense him until she felt his kiss, her sweet nerd had become one hell of a spy in the time he was training, not to mention what his body was like when she got his clothes off him.

While they had plenty of romance in their nights together, the majority of the time was spent working on the Council's cases together or working out or sparring together (because though it hurt Sarah's pride to admit it (which she did), Chuck had passed over her in the physical aspects (and some others) of their craft in the time he was at the training facility, and they were working together to get her closer to his level now). She knew that he was pulling all of his hits when they were sparring but from what she was shown from his training at the facility, he was pulling his punches with the punishers that were allocated to beat him into submission (or whip him into shape, depending on the official viewpoint) there too, so that didn't hurt her pride TOO much, and it was exhilarating to be able stretch herself the way she did when she was training with him, as the level he was at now was higher than anyone she'd ever faced before. Chuck, being Chuck, wasn't pandering to her, he was treating her as his equal and only pulling punches to prevent damage, just as he had at the training facility. These sessions were a growth period for both of them, as a couple and as partners, as the trust and respect that they had for each other meant that they were helping each other develop both individually and as a team while they delivered results to the Council.

Sarah was still running missions from Castle with Casey and was under the eye of Casey and their "bosses", so they couldn't meet except in secret, but Orion had built her a secure phone that looked just like the one she'd been using before, so she could use it talk to Chuck when they were both out from under surveillance or scrutiny. After their six months of forced separation and with their nights together, that was the only thing that got them through this period. As well as Chuck, she was managing to talk to her mother quite a bit and they were catching up on the time they had lost (and getting the story of how her mother was a top level analyst for the CIA when she was a little girl, that little gem had shocked her when she heard).

Given that Sarah was under scrutiny much of the time, Chuck was doing most the legwork for their Council missions in this period, gathering information on individuals and organisations, breaking into facilities and computer systems to extract whatever was required, planting bugs etc, which gave them the material for him and Sarah to work through back at her room. He also provided clandestine support for some of Sarah's "official" missions to keep her safe, something she noted a few times when he became "visible" because he let his guard slip because he was struck by her beauty (as he so often was). Her catching him out led to an argument about him questioning her abilities until Bryan stepped in to tell her that the Council had supported his desire to be there and keep her safe in dangerous situations, so he was working under orders as well as his own desires.

Another thing that Chuck was doing was learning to operate and use the equipment and transports that his father had put together to assist them. His father was a technological genius, and Chuck was just beginning to find out that what he'd waved away as crazy stories about the technological advances that had come from his designs were all, actually, true, and what's more what he'd been told about was just scratching the surface of what he'd created. While his father's designs were primarily, but not exclusively, in the electronics fields, he had come in contact with all sorts of people in the over fifteen years that he'd been in hiding, and a large part of how he'd survived and even thrived in that period was that he had either sold or traded some of his designs and creations with others who worked in different fields. As a result, as well as the plethora of amazing gadgets that his father had created, he had many other items that the rest of the world had never seen, and wasn't likely to.

Getting up to speed on their equipment probably would have gone more quickly if he hadn't spent so much time talking to his father and getting explanations for everything that had happened, but no-one begrudged him the opportunity to properly sort things out with the father he thought he'd lost before he turned twelve. Chuck could accept the logic of why his father left before he could hurt him and Ellie more, and to get the people that he'd worked for away from them, but when he left, he ripped away any chance of them of enjoying what were supposed to be the happiest years of their lives. He forced his daughter who was barely into her mid-teens to become a working single mother and provide for and raise her brother. He also left Chuck a rudderless orphan, for all of Ellie's loving heart, she wasn't ready to become a mother at fifteen and look after Chuck. She saw her girlfriends going to parties and having dates and fun, while she was slaving away at two jobs to pay the bills and keep food on the table while trying to manage her education and look after a brother who was just starting to find out how to deal with teenaged hormones, trying to succeed with his own education and help out with the bills and everything who was ALSO missing out on everything that made his friends' and peers' lives worth living. Yeah, logically Chuck could understand his father's reasoning, but he had effectively finished ruining their lives when he walked away.

Chuck also spent a fair bit of time getting to know Sarah's mother when she was acting as the operational director and, to a lesser degree, Bryan Mills (he could easily understand why the members of the council, including Sarah, held him in such high regard, this was a man that he definitely looked up to, even before he flashed on his file and saw what he had endured and achieved throughout his time with the CIA and afterwards). He talked to his mother sometimes, but she was watched even more closely than he had been since he had been dragged into this world, so she could rarely speak freely, and most of what he learned about her came from his father, Emma or Bryan.

Chuck was like a little kid with all the cool gear that he got to work with, but what had to be the coolest was the Falcon. Orion had managed to get his hands on the designs and parts for the ¼ scale UAV flight test prototype for the HyperMach SonicStar almost hypersonic transport, and with help he had reworked the UAV design into a tandem two seat manned airframe and added VTOL capability. By revising the design specs to utilise titanium and carbon fibre rather than the original materials, they had significantly reduced the airframe weight while increasing strength, which meant that they had an almost hypersonic VTOL two seater that had inter-continental range at their disposal. He also incorporated active camouflage and stealth capabilities into the skin and systems so that it could be almost undetectable in the air or on the ground. This meant that, once Chuck and Sarah took on an active role as the operatives for the Council, they could get to anywhere they needed to be far faster than anyone else and in total secrecy. Of course, to do that, Chuck and Sarah needed to be able to fly the Falcon, and that was one hell of a learning curve even for someone with access to the capabilities of the Intersect and everything else. Between them, Chuck and his father created a flight simulator for the Falcon's specs and behaviours, and Chuck spent many hours using the simulator and operating the Falcon remotely (as the UAV capabilities were retained so that it could be flown to where it was needed remotely) before he strapped in to take it up manually. Even then it was a pretty hairy ride to take the Falcon up, as it was extremely manoeuvrable "in the flesh", which is to say that the airframe design wasn't far off being unstable. The airframe's capabilities made the risks acceptable to them, and the ability to throw it around more than any production fighter came in handy the few times they were actually identified and targeted, but it was definitely an experience.

For "flight suits", Chuck and Sarah, and the others when required, wore the prototype "tactical suits" that Stephen had developed out of some revolutionary designs that had been abandoned as being too difficult/expensive to produce, head to toe armoured suits that would protect the wearer from pretty much any small arms fire up to .50 cal plus bomb blasts, as well as biological, chemical and nuclear threats, without restricting movement much at all. While in the inactive state, the suits were black, but multiple designs and camouflage patterns plus active camouflage could be activated to mask the wearer from discovery (simpler forms of this applied to weapons coatings as well, using a form of e-paper), the suits also masked/retained heat signatures so that they avoided being picked up by IR cameras and allowed them to communicate with each other without worrying about the noise giving them away, as they were effectively soundproof.

The weapons that they were supplied were also abandoned designs that Stephen had managed to make viable, high capacity 10 MM calibre air pistols that were loaded with a number of different rounds including tranq darts and could be switched between suppressed/subsonic, normal and high velocity on the fly, bullpup assault rifle versions of the same weapons, and 20 MM and 40 MM calibre carry-able rail guns. The Falcon and their other vehicles were all mounted with gunpods that combined high capacity versions of the air weapons and the rail guns, to provide a bit of defensive capability.

The ground transports were also rather on the wild side, sleek Odyssey inspired minivans that wouldn't look out of place at red carpet events, but which utilised electric 4WD motor in wheel drive systems, wide range variable suspensions that could safely handle upwards of 200 MPH on the road and 100 MPH off road, armour that could handle up to 40 MM shell barrages for some time and enough weapons to fight off a number of LAVs, and which sported the same variable image/active camouflage capabilities as the Falcon and the suits, they also had electric 2WD bikes that had similar capabilities to the minivans, though their armour only protected from a frontal assault. In addition to the transports, they had a number of mobile bases/command posts masquerading as RVs or trucks that they stored the bikes and minivans and all their other equipment in, except the Falcon, that was usually hidden at out of the way airfields. So when they slipped away from their usual heavily monitored locations, they'd go to the nearest mobile base, get geared up and head out to their missions from there (they also used the mobile bases to meet when the risk of discovery for meeting in Sarah's room were too high).

It was when they were meeting in the mobile bases that they had their chance to talk openly, and when they were laying together in each other's arms they filled each other in on what they'd learned about their families. The big thing that came out from the start was how much they had all been harmed and hurt by the secrets and lies that had been between them. When Sarah pulled away to sit up and looked at him with an intense expression, Chuck was terrified that he was about to lose her, so he almost fainted with relief when she said that the secrets and lies in their lives had already come close to destroying them time and time again, so she wanted to make an agreement that there would be no secrets or lies between them, they couldn't control anyone else but she wanted them to promise this to each other. He agreed and reached for her but she gently, and very pensively, laid her hand on his arm to stop him and told him with tears in her eyes that she had to tell him her secrets while she could, and that she hoped that his love for her would be enough to accept her after what she told him. Chuck nodded slowly, knowing that this was not going to be a pleasant experience for either of them. Sarah was mainly looking down at her hands with tears in her eyes as she told Chuck about the things she'd done in cons with her father up until she was seventeen, and what she had done as an agent, the killing, torture, threats, blackmail, seduction, sleeping with marks under orders, her relationship with Bryce (that was the only "relationship" she'd had before Chuck), everything.

At the end she sat there, quietly crying, as she was sure that he would just get up and leave. She flinched when she felt him grip her chin to pull her up to face him and saw the tears in his eyes, closing her eyes and trying to look away so she wouldn't see the disgust that she was sure would be in his eyes when he looked at her. Chuck's grasp on her chin, while gentle, prevented her from looking away though so she opened her eyes again, to see that his eyes were full of love and anguish for her, rather than disgust. Chuck leaned in to gently kiss her and tell her that he was not going to hold her responsible for the things that she was made to do or coerced into doing. He asked her if she had willingly gone along with her father's cons, or whether she was made to do it? She quietly said "made to", then he asked whether she had chosen to go into the CIA and do what she did, the look of disgust that crossed over her face when she said "No!" made him ask her what they did to make her do it, so she explained how Graham had arrested her father and put him in prison and then held his safety, his life, over her head to make her join the CIA and do everything he told her to until she was so mired in the filth that she had been dragged into that there was no way out for her. At that she tried to get away from him, get up and leave his life but he wouldn't let her, he just held her gently, albeit with a grip that she couldn't break, and told her that she wasn't mired in filth, she, the person that she was, his Sarah, was still wonderful and loving and loved, what Agent Walker did was not a reflection on who Sarah was, and she was going to have to come up with a hell of a lot more than that to stop him loving her. She looked at him in amazement and more than a little doubt as to his sanity as she asked him what she'd done to deserve someone like him, he just smiled gently at her and said "You're Sarah, you're MY Sarah" At that she melted into her arms and laid there, crying about what she'd done and experienced but happy that this was her place to be.

The next time that they were together in one of the mobile bases, Chuck filled her in on his past, while it was not as traumatic or dark as her's had been made to be, by "normal" people's standards it was still terrible. He went through the guilt and anguish over his mother leaving when he was 9, Ellie trying to hold the family together and look after him before she even became a teenager, his father receding into a world of madness and staying locked in his work room except when he came out to get food or to rant about unrelated and crazy things up until the day, less than three years later, that they woke up to find that he was gone too. He talked about them hiding the fact that his father was gone from the authorities, because they were both children (Ellie still hadn't turned sixteen), and they would have been taken into the foster care system (when Sarah shuddered at that, he asked her what was wrong, but she told him that she'd tell him that part later). He explained that Morgan's mother and a couple of other neighbours helped them where they could, especially with covering up the situation about their parents but it was hard, Ellie was working two jobs while trying to get through highschool and raise Chuck as a good person, and Chuck was doing what he could to try and help with the money and everything else. By the time Ellie finished highschool with a scholarship to go to UCLA, their money situation was so bad that they had to sell the house, with help from a neighbour to make it appear legal. They moved into a tiny off-campus apartment near the university and Chuck had to change schools, but between the money they had from the sale of the house and the jobs that they both held down in what should have been their free time, they got by.

Chuck looked a little guilty when he admitted that he'd gone a little crazy in highschool and university after he got the scholarship to Stanford, and tended to sleep with the girls that came onto him in the little free time he had off. Well he had until he started with Jill at least, the morals that Ellie had instilled in him prevented him from cheating on her. Sarah looked at him at this point with a little smile and asked whether he was telling her that he was the tart in this relationship, at which he blushed (she loved seeing that), and said "I guess I was". After that he filled in the rest of the story, up to the point where Bryce got him kicked out of Stanford and Jill broke up with him, telling him that she'd slept with Bryce.

They were quiet after that, Sarah was a little stunned as she considered what they had gone through and that they had managed to come out the way they were, she didn't think she could have been more impressed with Chuck or his sister, but he had just proven her wrong. After they had laid there in silence for a while, Chuck asked her why she'd reacted that way when he mentioned foster care. She flinched again, but she had made the commitment for no secrets, so she told him about the times she was put into the foster care system after her father was arrested, the fumbling and groping from creepy foster "fathers" and "brothers", the attempted rapes, and what she'd done to get out of those situations. Chuck had tears in his eyes as he pulled her into his arms and held her, whispering that he was sorry.

As they learned more about their families and the other members of the Council, they shared it with each other in their nights together, they had each gotten different parts of Emma's story from her and the others, and as they put them together Sarah learned what an amazing woman her mother was, at that Chuck smiled and said it showed in the amazing daughter she had, the fact that Jack bolted and left her to be captured when HIS changes to the plan that she'd put together blew up in his face incensed both Sarah and Chuck, and way that one of Graham's predecessors came in to test her abilities and then blackmail her into working for the agency was all too familiar to Sarah. She was so glad that Emma's value to the organisation led to the protection order being put out to anyone working with her, otherwise a beautiful and vulnerable woman like her would have been eaten up by those bastards in the agency. Chuck was able to fill in a few extra details once they had the story from the others, as the Intersect had information on her achievements and successes, far more than Emma had ever been told, of course. Sarah was just grateful that the others had helped her escape after her father took her away, she couldn't bear to think what would have happened to her if she didn't get away from that environment.

When they talked about Chuck's mother, Sarah smiled when Chuck said with surprise, if not shock, that his mother was like an earlier version of her, in her day she did things that no-one believed a woman could do, and outdid most of the men, just like she did. The odd man out in this was his father, he was tricked into joining that world through his own naivety and ego, and Chuck was a little ashamed with himself that he couldn't help looking down at his father for developing the terrible things that he had for Graham. Sarah had to remind him that he was in the same boat as the rest of them, even the ones who had willingly, and knowingly joined the intelligence community had been blackmailed or coerced at some point into doing what they had to do to protect the people that they loved.

To change the subject a little, she turned his attention to Bryan, the one that their mothers and the General described as being "the one good man in the spy world", she told him about the time that Bryan had saved her, and they'd talked about his daughter, Kim. She could tell that even though Kim's mother had remarried, he still loved her and couldn't move on, adding with a smirk that that must be frustrating for all those women who were so obviously crushing on him, which managed to get a laugh from Chuck. Given that she was on a roll, she started in on about how "Auntie Diane" had been gushing about holding little Chuck on the day that he'd been born, which of course made him blush, and they talked about how much of a headfuck it was to think of her as a mother (or Roan as a father, Chuck interjected with a grin), and as they laughed about that, the previous angst was put behind them. As they were relaxing afterwards, Chuck turned to her with a wry grin, saying that they never had any hope of avoiding the spy game, because it was obviously the family business for both of them, and Sarah had to agree.

Following the directions that he was given, Chuck played the loser for nearly two months before he was given permission to stage a scenario where he could "accidentally" discover that Sarah was still there and crash their mission to get accepted back onto the team, part of what they'd been practicing in Sarah's room was the roles they had to play when this happened, so they had little trouble pulling off two people shut off from one another even though they still loved each other. Of course, it didn't hurt that Casey was really rooting for them to fix their relationship under his facade, and that the person that they were theoretically the most afraid of was in fact running them as a secret team.

When Chuck was brought back into the team, it was difficult for both of them, not just because they couldn't show, or at least act on, their feelings for one another, but they both felt guilty about lieing to Casey the way they had to. They both trusted Casey and knew what he had done to protect them, their relationship as well as physically over the time they'd all been together, but the rest of the Council weren't convinced of his trustworthiness as yet, so they had to keep hiding evidence from him, so that they could follow it up and act on it as part of the Council, rather than as part of the team with him. In a way, though, this helped them maintain the "faces" that were expected from them as their feelings of discomfort about deceiving Casey and being careful what they showed towards each other came across as their being uncomfortable with each other and hence fit perfectly with who they were supposed to be at that point.

At least this gave Sarah a bit of an understanding of what Chuck was going through, and had been for the past 2 ½ years, having to lie to Ellie and everyone that he cared about because of the role that had been forced on him by Bryce and the government. She had felt guilty at times when she was working with her father on his cons, but they had rarely stayed in one place long enough to get attached to people, and she'd never felt this deep rooted sense of guilt over the betrayal of anyone that she was close to before this. She didn't feel good treating Ellie the way she did, but she had managed to compartmentalise it into protecting civilians from the truth, but Casey was different, he had been part of their team and supported them for 2 ½ years and they had to treat him like an untrusted outsider. Yet again, exposure to Chuck and the man that he was was bringing out the emotions that she'd buried since she was a little girl.

One thing they did manage to get a laugh out of, though, was the "Ninja" legends. Any time they went into a combat mission, they wore the tactical suits (AKA flight suits), so as their missions started adding up, the rumours and legends of an elite squad of Ninja Masters that was taking down groups and facilities all over the world started coming out. Of course, the stories coming out were that at least 10-20 Ninja Masters were hitting the facilities they did and wiping out any opposition, and sometimes the head count in the stories was even bigger. The reported numbers of attackers left them literally on the floor laughing at some points, because the most they'd ever had working on any operation was four, Chuck, Sarah, Bryan and Frost, for one operation where the scale was just too big for the two of them, and it was only a few other times that Bryan had backed them up on-site for operations. The Ninja legends continued to grow, though, and actually helped them because the other side was so convinced that there had to be some organisation of master warriors and spies that was pulling off all their operations that they managed to run entirely under the radar, which in turn allowed them to come and go and set up their missions without anyone suspecting them of anything. They had to concede though that it was cool to watch the videos of them taking down the opposition when they took out their facilities, because it was surreal to know that they were those two anonymous warriors in black who were decimating everything that came at them time and again.

With Chuck back on the team, they continued to do missions with similar success rates to what they had been having before, Chuck was careful not to give too much away about what he could do now, and they kept up the pretence of tension and friction between them whenever anyone else could get sight or sound on them. For the most part, things were progressing OK, they'd go through the motions when they were in public, grab what they needed to work on for the Council and have their time together when they could get away from the rest of the world, but the storm was coming.

The General barely had a chance to warn them that someone else was going to join the team, she didn't need to warn them to be careful of him but did say that there was something wrong about him. What she meant was quite apparent to them, and Casey, when Special Agent Daniel Shaw strutted into the room in the middle of their teleconference with the General and basically took over.

**A/N No, I don't have any issue with constructive criticism, just those who repeatedly use anonymous guest "reviews" as a medium to make personal attacks, which are usually rather below the belt. If you read a wide enough cross section of the stories here, I'm sure that you will see many other writers expressing the same sentiments, just as I have.**


	4. Shaw Thing

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters not created here.**

When this Shaw character walked in with an arrogant smirk and just took over, the immediate response from the team, to anyone who could read them anyway, was WTF? Chuck looked at the screen and saw the General looking at him with a guarded expression, so he looked at Sarah and they agreed that they'd be having a serious discussion about this as soon as they got away from here, with just a look. The general caught the look and the significance, even if she couldn't read what they had communicated, and smiled to herself, her friends' children were incredible individually but together they were something else. Their total devotion to each other and doing the right thing meant that they were an unstoppable force, they would save the world.

While Shaw was strutting about and preening, she tuned out and thought briefly about the "Ninja" videos that she'd seen, and in particular the compilation one on her private laptop that Josephine had made up of the wildest scenes to date with a suitable soundtrack, watching them was addictive as they were poetry in motion when they worked together in perfect harmony. She knew the extent of Josephine's hero worship for the pair and had been concerned at first as she thought her daughter was crushing on Chuck (because the thought of what might happen to her daughter if she tried to come between them terrified her), but she came to realise that it was both of them and the depth of the love between them that had captured Josephine's admiration, so there was no risk of her doing anything stupid in that regard. She brought her attention back to Shaw when he addressed her, and had no trouble presenting her stern "General face" when he essentially dismissed her.

By the time Shaw finished and they left the meeting, all three of the team members were openly sharing the WTF? looks, this guy had an ego the size of Mount Rushmore! Chuck and Sarah left separately and drove to where they'd stashed a "clean" car, taking that to the nearest mobile base to talk about what happened, and then have a conference call with the others. There wasn't much in the Intersect about Shaw, but there was enough to know that there was something seriously "off" about him, and the most worrying information was that his wife, Evelyn, had been the subject of Sarah's Red Test, though there was no indication that he knew that. They questioned the General about why he had been added to the team, but all she could tell them was that it was ordered by a government oversight committee and that Shaw apparently had some very powerful people behind him. Because there was something off, and the risk to Sarah in regard to the Red Test information, Chuck wanted to get rid of this guy ASAP, but Sarah calmed him with a hand on his arm and convinced him that they had to get the full story of what was going on, so the best course was to keep an eye on him and let it play out. Chuck wasn't at all happy about that, but accepted her call on the matter, even when the General pointed out that from the looks Shaw had been giving her, he would obviously be coming on to her hard and fast. Sarah sighed at that with a palpable look of disgust on her face, but assured them (while looking Chuck in the eye) that she could keep him and the situation under control without things going anywhere. Once the video conference was finished, Chuck and Sarah had a little "us" time to talk and calm themselves (and each other) down, and then headed back to their cars to go home.

The next few weeks were torture for Chuck and Sarah, with Shaw strutting about, tearing up the team dynamic and hitting on Sarah at every chance he could get. Sarah concentrated on giving him "not interested" vibes but he was so oblivious that they wondered whether he was really a spy. (Until they remembered Bryce Larkin and the fact that many males in the spy world were so full of themselves that they couldn't imagine any woman not falling for them. When she remembered that, Sarah couldn't stop herself reaching out to gently squeeze Chuck's arm, but the only one in the room who noticed it (with a smile) was Casey, the wooden dummy was oblivious.)

When they were alone later Chuck suddenly sat up and snapped his fingers, Sarah had to chuckle as she said that she didn't think people actually did that, Chuck gave her a little grin in return as he shrugged, and then told her that he'd finally remembered who Shaw reminded him of. Sarah looked at him with a raised eyebrow when he didn't continue, so he did. "There was one English teacher back in highschool that we all hated, a pompous little bearded dwarf called Mr Vun Kleaver, no wait, that wasn't his name, we started calling him that after he made us watch Leave It To Beaver to get a better understanding of creative story telling (Sarah looked at him in disbelief and he said "I know, right?"). Anyway, I've forgotten his actual name but the thing was he was so full of himself that if anyone expressed any opinion that didn't agree with his, he'd spend all day telling them why they were wrong, which basically came down to they were wrong because they didn't agree with him. I was just glad that I wasn't one of the big football jocks, because the way he'd obsess over some of those dudes was creepy, like a stalker, it made ME squirm and I was invisible to him. Anyway, it just occurred to me that Shaw is so much like that guy." Sarah had to laugh at that, but it did sound like Shaw was just like that tool.

Due to Shaw's interference, the team's success rate went through the floor, and it was also effecting Chuck because he wanted to pound the guy for hitting on Sarah the way he was. With all this going on, Chuck and Sarah were getting less done in their night sessions because Sarah had to spend most of the time trying calm down Chuck and reassure him that she was OK. The others understood this as what they were watching on the video feeds was turning their stomachs, even without being directly involved like the couple were.

All their alarm bells went off when Shaw suddenly announced that Chuck was going on a solo mission to Paris, even Casey was arguing with him that it wasn't right to send Chuck out on his own with no backup but Shaw just overrode them, smug as ever. As there was no way that Sarah could support him, and everyone else on the Council who was a field agent was too well known to go in, the General made a snap judgement call and sent Josephine in to sit with Chuck and give him some backup. Josephine was nowhere near Chuck or Sarah's level by any stretch of the imagination, no-one had any delusions about that, but she could provide another pair of eyes and give him the cover of a couple on the plane to assist in what way she could. Josie (as she preferred to be called) had met Chuck and Sarah a few times with her father, and she jumped at the chance to help out, so she headed to the airport while her mother arranged for the tickets etc in her cover name and explained to Chuck and Sarah what they were doing over the micro earwigs that they were wearing (Orion had come up with almost undetectable earwigs that went right into the ear, so they could wear them and be in contact with the others almost all the time). Sarah was worried what Shaw's plans were, but she was relieved that Chuck would have someone watching his back, and to keep other women away from him, as she had to admit that she did get aggravated when women were hitting on her man, just as much as Chuck did with her.

On the plane, Chuck introduced himself to "Hannah" and they started chatting as they both looked around, trying to detect anything out of the ordinary. Unfortunately they discovered all too soon that the situation wasn't what they'd been told when he flashed on the Ring agent. When he called it in and Shaw smugly told him that the mission was on the plane, rather than in Paris as he'd advised them, Bryan, as the current Operational Director, had to spend a few minutes screaming at Sarah not to kill Shaw over her earwig before the situation backed off from DEFCON 1. The General was in her office and being recorded at the time, so while she went white when she heard what was going on, she couldn't do or say anything.

There were complications, among them the fact that Chuck's hands were tied by the fact that there would be records of whatever he did, but after a contrived battle in the cargo hold, a poisoning and a few other things, he achieved the mission objectives without revealing anything he shouldn't. Of course, Shaw didn't let him enjoy his success, just ordered him to stay on the plane and return immediately to the States, so he said goodbye to "Hannah" and went back.

When he got back and handed over the key, Chuck played his part perfectly, but as soon as they got away from the others and the recording devices he fell apart just as much as Sarah did. He did have to laugh when she slapped him and told him never to do that to her again, but he managed to calm her down and stop her tears by gently pointing out that he was right there and he was fine.

It didn't help the situation when Bryan contacted them soon after to let them know that Orion had found links in files that supported their suspicions about Shaw, but the keys seemed to be off-line, so unfortunately they were going to need Sarah to try and get some information out of him. It would require careful analysis to determine whether Chuck or Sarah went ballistic first over that, because they would have to go down to microseconds to differentiate, but they both made it quite clear that they were NOT happy with the idea. The Council was expecting that and Bryan handed off to Emma, because for all Sarah loved Bryan like a father (more so than Jack), and knew that he would never willingly ask something like this of her, the idea of it was totally disgusting to her, so it was decided that it would better for her mother to explain the very real need for it to her. After quite a bit of discussion, and more than a few tears, Sarah grudgingly agreed to flirt, but nothing more, with Shaw to try and extract information from him.

Then they dropped the next bomb, because as obtuse as Shaw was, even he'd see something was up if Chuck was right there in front of her and Sarah appeared to be giving in to Shaw's "charm", especially as he'd already made a clumsy attempt to establish rapport with her by playing the "we've both fallen in love with spies" line. Therefore, they were sending Josephine back in as Hannah to be a distraction and love interest for Chuck to make Sarah seem more available in Shaw's eyes. They could hear Sarah's teeth grinding before, with deceptive calm, she asked whether Josie was on the call? She wasn't but they got her on quickly and Sarah thanked her for helping Chuck on the plane and helping them with this part of the mission, then ever so sweetly asked if she understood what would happen if she crossed the line with Chuck while she was doing this? From the sound of Josie's voice, it was quite possible that she'd wet herself before she stammered that she understood and that she'd never do that. Everyone on the call thought Chuck was a dead man (and obviously suicidal) when he laughed at that and assured Josie that they both knew quite well that she wouldn't do anything of the sort as she was their friend and they trusted her. The discussion at Chuck and Sarah's end became quite heated at that point, then changed to something else and the rest disconnected from the call, because they didn't really want to hear that.

When "Hannah" arrived and got a job with Chuck, she had the entire Buy More convinced that she was into Chuck, which led to fun and games with Chuck's "best friend" when he started making his pathetic attempts to charm her. Of course, as soon as it looked like Chuck was otherwise occupied, Shaw went into overdrive with his attempts to get Sarah and she showed what a consummate actress she was by tentatively reaching out to him. The very real anguish she had over doing this and having Chuck pretend to be with "Hannah" made her act all the more believable, and helped her keep Shaw at arm's length whenever he tried to take it further, as she could stick with the line that she wasn't ready for anything like that yet.

The only thing that got them through this was being able to slip away and spend the nights in each other's arms. Having to put up with Shaw coming onto her made Sarah feel dirty. Chuck had it a lot easier because he and Josie were acting together to play a role, and nothing was going on (and Sarah knew that nothing would have happened even if she hadn't threatened Josie, she didn't know how she was going to make it up to her when this was all over), so he just concentrated all his efforts on comforting Sarah and making sure she knew how much he loved her. When Chuck broke up with "Hannah" and she left, it didn't really do anything to make Sarah's situation better, because she was still stuck in the seduction mission with Shaw, but at least Josie was safer because she was away from the dangerous operations around them. The close call she had in the vault had showed how real the danger was.

As they progressed through Chuck's "spy training", because officially the six months he spent in Prague was a waste of time and money, both of them had to do things that they weren't at all happy about. Sarah's worst trial was, of course, putting up with Shaw's attentions, but Chuck was learning what it actually felt like to work someone and then burn them, perform elements of torture on Casey and spin an ever more convoluted web of lies for Ellie and the other people in his life, and it was effecting him. Being there for each other was the only thing that shored them up enough to continue.

When Sarah got caught up in a sting operation and was almost killed when the target of the assassin (who they'd captured and then in turn had escaped) turned out to be Shaw, Chuck almost lost it. It started out OK, she'd met Shaw in his apartment to talk about how she was concerned about how Chuck was changing, letting him know her real name when she hadn't told anyone, "not even Chuck" and all the rest, Shaw was lapping it up. Having to kiss him made her want to gag but they were getting closer to gaining his confidence and getting the material that they needed to take him down, so she held onto that. When Chuck turned up to put on the show of a mock fight with Shaw for "his girl", though, things got difficult because Shaw obviously wanted to try and impress Sarah by being the Alpha Dog and tried to beat Chuck down to diminish him in Sarah's eyes. Of course Chuck could have taken him out in a heartbeat but he couldn't do that without showing his hand, so he played along with the "real" fight until the assassin suddenly burst into the room. The surprise factor meant that the assassin had a chance to grab Sarah and put a gun to her head. As Chuck was too far away to take him on hand to hand, and there was absolutely nothing in reach that he could use to take out the assassin before he could pull the trigger, he was certain that he was going to see the love of his life killed before his eyes when Casey managed to take the assassin out with the sniper rifle he'd found in the room that Chuck had come from. Chuck and Sarah only barely managed to keep the act up in front of Shaw, and they only pulled it off because their feelings for each other were known, even though they were theoretically not together. They could only communicate with their eyes, but they managed to tell each other what they needed at that point.

As they lay in bed that night, holding onto each other desperately, they had a very serious discussion about running, from the Council and their families as well as the government, but their sense of right and wrong wouldn't let them walk away from the innocents that they'd pledged to protect, so they went back to their respective charades in the morning.

When the circumstances meant that Morgan had to be allowed to see what was happening when the Ring took over Castle, it made things more complicated, but it couldn't be helped because Chuck had to take out the Ring agents and get outside before Shaw tried to call for Castle to be blown up, because Sarah would have killed him. Of course, Morgan's idiotic behaviour got exponentially worse once he knew that his best friend was a spy. This meant that he was always badgering Chuck about spy matters and came close to exposing them several times. They managed to save him from being dropped in a hole, but his behaviour made them wonder whether it had been a good idea to do so, when even Chuck came around to that way of thinking, the others knew just how bad it was getting.

What came next reminded Chuck of Casey's standard jibe about him being a trouble magnet, and also that he had blinders on when it came to those closest to him. It may have been because he and Sarah were desperate to have a break from the angst while Shaw was away (especially after Sarah's near death experience), but he just didn't pay attention to the clues that were in front of him. They had an easy mission to check the security of the CIA facility, especially the vaults, and with the Intersect, they got through the levels easily enough, but when they were collecting the target pieces from the final vault he saw Casey taking something from a box that wasn't on his list. Casey seemed "off", but he accepted Casey's response on blind faith until the next day when they were advised that a prototype drug had disappeared from the vault, and in fact from the box that he saw Casey at. Without thinking, he presumed that this was part of the testing process and half jokingly pointed the finger at Casey, saying that he'd seen him take it. By the time Casey was taken away in cuffs he knew that something very wrong was going on here, but the die was cast when he publicly accused Casey of taking the contents of the box, because it was recorded.

At that point he remembered something that he'd flashed on when they were setting up the sting operation to ascertain the assassin's target, something about Casey's real name being Alex Coburn. Then he managed to see footage of a visit from Casey's old commander, who had defected to the Ring. The only chance he had to talk about this was when he went to see Sarah while she was overseeing the search of Casey's apartment, they tried to break Casey out to prove that he was innocent but they obviously hadn't seen ALL the security systems in the CIA facility, because they were discovered and arrested. It was a shock when the General told them that Alex Coburn's death had been faked twenty years before so that he could be reborn as John Casey to join the NSA blackops teams. They were only allowed to stay free because they had the best chance of catching Casey, which they did. When they did so they found out that the Ring had threatened the life of his ex-fiancée to blackmail him, so Chuck and Sarah helped him save her and take down his old commander, and in the process they discovered that Casey also had a daughter he'd never known about. The only concession that the General could give Casey after stealing the Laudenol was to keep him out of prison, so he was cashiered out of the service. The whole incident made Chuck (and Sarah) wonder what they were fighting for, a good man who had supported and protected both of them for three years and had served his country for over a quarter of a century had his whole life taken away from him because he tried to save the life of the woman that he'd loved most of his adult life. The only wins coming out of the exercise were that they managed to keep him out of prison, they had saved his fiancée and daughter, and everyone believed that Chuck had taken the Laudenol to defeat the Ring agents (how else could he have fought the way he did?), so the government couldn't use it to try to make other good men do terrible things.

Unfortunately, to keep up the cover, Sarah had to go to DC after that to spend time with Shaw, and hardly got any time alone to talk to Chuck. He knew that he could trust her, but for both of their sakes Bryan and Emma made sure that they were the only ones who listed to the recording devices on Sarah over that time. It was hard enough for them to listen to Shaw coming on to Sarah, and her pretending to enjoy it, let alone the man who loved her. The only thing that they said to Chuck when Sarah was on her way back with Shaw was that if he had any doubts, he could listen to the entire unedited recordings, Emma in particular was touched by Chuck's incredulous expression when he asked why would he doubt Sarah?

When Sarah and Shaw got back to Castle, there was no chance to talk, all they could do was communicate with the looks that they shared when he was out of the room, but that was enough until they could meet elsewhere. Sarah and Chuck were questioning the value of this exercise, they were all sure that Shaw wasn't right, and he was up to something, but for all the time that Sarah had been forced to spend with him and put up with his advances, she'd hardly found any real evidence on him. Chuck was feeling terrible about what this was doing to Sarah, and HE was actually on the verge of suggesting that they just put a bullet in Shaw's head if they couldn't get any evidence to stop him legally.

Luckily the timeframes were being shortened as Shaw had put the wheels in motion to get Chuck's final tests done quickly (probably so he could get Chuck out of the way because he was hoping that that would give him a clear shot at Sarah), so the Shaw period was coming to an end, whether they got the evidence they needed or not. When Chuck went through his final tests, especially his Red Test, Sarah was upset, partly because she was getting flashbacks to her own Red Test and how that had destroyed her, but also because this was the part of the spy game that she never wanted Chuck to have anything to do with. When the time came for Chuck's Red Test, Chuck was having a hard time, but was prepared to go through with it because he believed in what the Council were doing, and that he could be more effective as a full agent, but at the last second Casey shot the mark for him. He had given Casey a handgun on the basis of a "thank you" gift (but more so that he could protect himself in case the Ring or anyone else came after him), and he'd followed Chuck on the night of his Red Test, stepping in and shooting the man before Chuck could because he, like Sarah, didn't want Chuck to experience being a killer like that.

Given that all the recordings showed that Chuck had successfully completed his Red Test, he was taken to DC to be inducted as an agent. The fictitious assignment that was supposedly waiting for him actually sounded wonderful, being a rich playboy in Rome and running a team there, pity it wasn't real. When he came back he had his on-air fight and rejection scene with Sarah in Castle, then because he was supposed to be a sap he made a public attempt to win her back. The plan was that Sarah was going to go to DC with Shaw (using the fights and end of the era with Chuck as an excuse to need a bit of space), and hopefully see dealings or evidence that could be used against Shaw and whoever he was associated with, but if nothing turned up withn a few days, they'd take him and interrogate him to try and get the information, or just terminate him if there were too many complications. They should have known that nothing went to plan in their lives.

Shaw apparently decided that being a big, damn hero was the way to impress Sarah and seal the deal, but the problem was that while following through with what he proposed, which they had to do as it was all on camera, could have worked out to take out one Ring base and get rid of Shaw, it would have invalidated everything that Sarah had gone through over the past couple of months. That was why Chuck went in to get Shaw out before the bunker busters hit. Things went a lot slower than he would have liked because he still couldn't show his true abilities in case the recordings from the base were recovered, so they just got out before the facility went up, almost giving Sarah a heart attack.

The fact that Casey surprised them again by going to Sarah and admitting to her that he had, basically, committed murder by killing the mark for Chuck's Red Test in hope that would change the way she saw him touched Sarah and Chuck, especially on top of what he'd done to spare Chuck the burden of completing his Red Test. They wanted to find a way of making it up to him but they couldn't see how at the time.

When they discovered that Shaw had seen the footage of Sarah's Red Test and took her off somewhere, Chuck went to rescue her, but because of the cameras in the facility, he couldn't do it by himself and had to take a tactical team in with him. Unfortunately, the traditionally trained spies (including Sarah) on the team were conditioned to believe Shaw's explanation that he understood the reason things had happened the way they did, and they thought that it was safe to proceed with their plans. They did stage a scene to get Chuck and Sarah's relationship on record so that Sarah could stop putting up with Shaw's advances, and they went on another mission with Shaw where he in fact proved that he was working with the Ring (he faked his attacks on Ring personnel). When information came down from other areas about something that Shaw and Sarah had to investigate in Paris, it was obvious that something important was going down, so the decision was made to go with it to see what they could discover.

Due the security cameras all over Paris, they couldn't afford to let Chuck give himself away by rescuing Sarah and taking down the Ring elements that they came into contact with by himself. While Bryan (or Mary) could have provided Chuck with backup to protect Sarah, Chuck decided that this gave them a chance to offer Casey redemption, and bring him onto the Council's team. Having to put up with Morgan's disgusting suggestions about Sarah and Shaw without flattening him was hard, but he pushed it down and left with Casey to "get on a plane to Paris". When they stopped beside a big RV though Casey was asking what the hell they were doing, and he was shocked when Chuck grabbed him and dragged him into the RV, because it was obvious that he couldn't have stopped him, how the hell had Chuck gotten stronger than he was? The fact that they were having a secret video conference with the General and other well known figures wasn't lost on Casey, so he shut up and paid attention, except when he turned to look at Chuck in shock when they informed him that Chuck and Sarah had trusted him and wanted to bring him in before this, but the proposal had been vetoed by the rest of the Council as they didn't share that trust yet. They gave him a quick background on the Council and what they did, and asked if he was prepared to come on board to help Chuck with the mission to save Sarah and capture or deal with the Ring elements that they would be up against in Paris. When he said "Yes!" without question they explained that it was Chuck's plan to let him take credit for the capture etc of significant Ring elements in Paris and use that as leverage to get himself formally re-instated while Chuck protected Sarah. After staring at Chuck again Casey pushed for them to get moving so that they could save Sarah, at that Chuck snorted and directed him to strip down and stand in the shower to get full body scan, while he was doing that Chuck grabbed his "flight suit" and gear and then they got back in the car and drove out to a small airfield on the outskirts of LA.

When they arrived, there was a small UAV in front of the hanger that they drove up to, once Chuck had removed the bag from the compartment it took off and left as Chuck opened the hanger. For all Casey's love for weaponry, as a pilot his true love was exotic planes, so when he saw the Falcon he almost wet himself. Chuck threw the bag at him and told him to get changed into the suit while he pulled his own out of the Falcon's storage compartment and did the same. The suits made Casey falter for a nearly half a minute when he realised who the legendary "Ninjas" actually were, then he shook himself and suited up. Given that this was the first time, Chuck had to explain to him how to hook up the catheters etc, then they packed their "normal" clothes into the bags (leaving most of the weapons in the bags as well) and stashed them back in the storage compartment. When they were ready they moved the Falcon out of the hanger and put the car inside before locking it up again, climbing into the Falcon and taking off to go save Sarah.

They took a few hours to get to Paris, and Chuck used that time to give Casey a proper background of who the Council were and what they were doing. He apologised for lieing to him and keeping him in the dark, but as he'd been told, he and Sarah had been overruled by the others. He also explained that his father would ensure all the records were in place to show that they'd flown commercially into Paris, and the Passports in the bag had all the relevant entry stamps etc. Casey took all that in and then asked him about Prague. Chuck went quiet before telling him that it was a key part of the plan and that the training was actually a complete success, rather than the failure it officially was, almost whispering that that still didn't it make it worth that he had to do to Sarah. Casey wasn't about to let that go so he asked what he'd done to Sarah? At first he didn't think Chuck was going to answer, but eventually Chuck explained that Sarah had proposed that they meet three weeks into his training and run away together, but the Council had convinced him that, for the greater good, he had to reject her and complete his training.

Knowing how they felt about each other, Casey just asked him how he did it? Chuck sounded far away (scary when he was the one piloting the almost hypersonic plane that were currently flying in) when he said that it was the hardest thing he'd ever done, for nearly six months Sarah was convinced that he'd just tossed her aside when she offered to give up everything and have the government come after them to save him from having to go through what was involved in being a spy. He didn't know what he would have done if they hadn't managed to convince her when he returned that it was absolutely necessary and she hadn't forgiven him and taken him back. Casey's next question was about what they'd done to pull off the act after he got back, then he asked "What about Hannah and what the hell was going on with Shaw?" Chuck managed to smile at Casey's loud reaction when he was told that "Hannah" was actually Josephine and she was Diane and Roan's daughter, but the amusement was wiped out when he explained that Sarah had reluctantly agreed to play Shaw to try and extract information about the Ring and other organisations he may have been working with, but that would be all over soon.

When they landed in Paris, they stashed the Falcon in a hanger that had been rented, changed into street clothes and collected the car that Chuck's father had arranged to be left for them. The risk to Sarah was still high as they couldn't shut down the operation until they had the key pieces and players. As soon as the Ring Director left with the materials that Shaw gave him, Casey went after him and the Ring (with Bryan as backup) while Chuck went to Sarah and Shaw.

When he confronted Shaw, the plan was still to bring him in for questioning as they were convinced that he had a lot more information than they'd seen so far, but when Shaw started to put a gun to Sarah's head saying that she had to pay for what she did to his wife, Chuck drew his pistol and double tapped him in the heart, adding another for good luck before he fell. There was no way he was going to risk Sarah's life any more, he didn't care what Shaw might know at that point, all that mattered was Sarah. He quickly checked Sarah to make sure she was OK (well, OK as she could be with the drugs in her system from the tranq dart that they hit her with) and made her comfortable in a chair. He left her there while he picked Shaw up and walked his "drunk buddy" down to the Sienne a couple of hundred metres away. Along the way, he took Shaw's wallet, phone and anything else of use or value that he had on him (in hope that the gendarmes may be stupid enough to believe that he was killed in a robbery, execution style manner of death notwithstanding), and once he'd made sure that no-one was watching, tossed him far enough out into the river to prevent him getting hung up on the shore anywhere near there before going back to get Sarah and take her to safety.

As planned, Casey took the credit for capturing the Ring Director and the materials and was flown back to LA on a military transport with his prisoner to be re-instated. When Sarah had recovered a little, she and Chuck made travel plans to go on a romantic train trip through Europe and made sure that they were captured on the train station's security cameras boarding the train before heading home in the Falcon, glad that that ordeal was finally finished.


	5. Smoke And Mirrors

**Hope this has what you wanted Wilf, not sure how well it works as it's not my normal style.**

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters not created here.**

With Casey on-board, things were a lot simpler, they still had to be careful and keep up the smoke and mirrors act when they were anywhere they may be recorded or observed by anyone from the agencies or their enemies, but with the team back together properly, they could work with each other to handle that better, they could place their tracking devices in remote controlled vehicles and use them to emulate the movements that they were expected to make when they weren't on an official mission or anywhere they could be recorded, and they could talk freely whenever they were in private.

Chuck and Sarah flew back to Europe, to return to the USA via a commercial flight and they used the rescue and "honeymoon" train trip to support a sanctioned relationship between them, the two of them and the General actually had fun acting out the argument and begrudging approval over a video conference in Castle. After that the sanctioned relationship flowed into the logical step of them moving in together as agents, which removed the need for surveillance devices in their home. Given that they moved into another apartment in the same complex, they could use the existing external security systems (which meant that they still provided protection for Ellie and Devon), but between Chuck and his father they reworked all the outputs, so no content left the complex that wasn't controlled and filtered, and they could switch to an on-going "clean" feed with a few keystrokes any time they had to leave on a mission.

Once they had the eyes and ears on them under control, Chuck had a chance to do what he'd been desperately wanting to for over three years now, tell Ellie the truth about what was going on, including the truth about their parents to hopefully give her a chance to reconnect with them if she wanted to. Both Devon and Morgan were aware of the spy life that Chuck, Sarah and Casey were part of, so it wasn't such a big thing to bring Ellie into the "spy secret", that was a fairly simple scenario to engineer so that she "had" to be told. What those two didn't know, of course, was anything about the real secret of the Council and their parents, and they never would. They took it all in steps, first they told Ellie about the secret that they were spies, and let her get used to the idea, along with the fact that her husband and her own personal stalker already knew about it.

When she'd settled down and was prepared to talk to Chuck again, he and Sarah told her the real secrets, and why they had to remain secret, including from Devon and Morgan. The secret under the spy secret was what made things strained for a while, Ellie could understood and accept that it had to be kept from others (of course, she was just as brilliant as her brother and father were), but the shock of finding out that her brother and his partner were part of the spy world had been bad enough, to then find that there was a much bigger secret under THAT, and that it involved her whole family (as well as Sarah's) was too much, it took her a while to take that in properly. Being told that the family business was a secret cabal working to save the world from evil doers? That was just too much like Chuck's comic books!

It was actually the General who made the story real for Ellie, because when they brought her into a video conference to try and explain the facts of the matter to Ellie, Ellie remembered her. Diane hadn't seen them since Chuck was a baby because of the security around their father's projects, so he had no memory of her, but Ellie was nearly four when she saw her last, and she remembered the nice red headed lady, Auntie Diane, who used to come and see them. As Ellie sat there, shocked and stunned, the General allowed Diane the mother and "aunt" to come to the forefront as she soothed her and explained that things would be OK. Chuck and Sarah had seen this side of her before, but Casey hadn't, and it freaked him out, he knew logically that she was a mother (he'd met her daughter as "Hannah" when she came in undercover) but for well over a decade she'd been his hard as nails boss who could make anyone quake in their boots, no matter how much bigger and tougher than her they were, to see her as a considerate and caring woman was a major headfuck for him.

After a few minutes of a semi-comatose Ellie it was decided that they'd have to try and explain another day, so they wound up the video conference and disconnected, Chuck went to her to try and snap her out of it.

"Ellie, are you OK? El? El, come on, talk to me!"

At first she just looked at him but his voice must have registered as her eyes lost their glazed over look and finally she focussed on him.

"That woman we were talking to, Auntie Diane, you work for her?"

At least she was talking now so Chuck grinned, quickly looking at Sarah with a question as to how much he could tell Ellie, Sarah just smiled and nodded, indicating to tell her everything, they weren't going to be bound by government red tape now. Chuck gave her a grateful smile and turned back to his sister.

"Well yeah, in our official job, we all report to the General, Auntie Diane (he added with a grin), and she'd also part of the Council that we also work with to deal with the issues outside of the corruption of the government agencies."

Ellie drew a deep breath and said "Tell me about the Council." Without realising that he was doing it, Chuck mimicked her by drawing a breath before he launched into it.

"Well they only started being active about five years or so ago, but most of them have been in the spy game for a long time. Mom and Auntie Diane knew each other as young agents before we were born, and they they've stayed fairly close since then, Dad and (grinning) Uncle Bryan came on the scene soon after, but still before we were born. Dad, well you know where he fitted in, Uncle Bryan was another agent that they knew, the one they all described as the one good man in the spy world, and he, Mom and Auntie Diane looked out for each other back in those days."

"A few years after I was born, Mom met Sarah's mom when she was working with her (Ellie looked quickly at Sarah), her mom was blackmailed into working for the CIA as an analyst, one of the best they had, anyway they became friends too and after her father took Sarah away to work on his cons with him when she was seven (Ellie looked back at Sarah and she nodded sadly), they helped her run and stay hidden so the agency couldn't get their hands on her again."

"The last member of the original council is Roan, he became part of the group in the '90s after Auntie Diane had his baby. Josie, their daughter, was raised by her cousin and it didn't come out until she was in her mid-teens who her real parents were, anyway, they were both in her life as "Aunt and Uncle" and that was how Roan was accepted into the group."

"It was around the time that Josie found out about her parents that they all decided that they couldn't stand on the sidelines and watch what was going on any more, they had to do something to stop everything going to hell, so they formed the Council to try and do something about what they were seeing. I think it was partly because they all had children, Mom and Dad had us, Emma had Sarah, Diane and Roan had Josie and Bryan has a daughter, Kim, who's about the same age as Josie, that pushed them into trying to save the world, I think it was for us, really."

"Out of the group that made up the Council, the General, Auntie Diane, had the most power to act as she runs the NSA, Bryan is still a very effective field agent but he was getting close to retirement from field work at that point, so he retired altogether from he CIA to give him the freedom to act independently. Roan is semi-retired and in general nothing like Bryan, but he is very effective in specific fields like getting information out of people and manipulating them. Sarah's mom was never a field agent and is officially on the run from the government, but she has a hell of a brain and she processes the information to give the group direction and does much of the planning for them. Mom is still very effective but she's kept on a short leash by a psychopathic Russian arms dealer, so she doesn't have much freedom to do anything, and Dad, well he isn't as bad as we remembered him, he's got his head straightened out a lot since then, but he's still erratic because of what's in his head and he was never a field agent either, he does all the hacking and technology work for the Council."

Ellie looked at him, trying to take it all in, but asked "What do you mean by what's in his head?"

Chuck looked at the others and Sarah smiled and nodded to him again, Casey nodding with her, so he grimaced (as he knew how she was going to react to this) and continued.

"What Dad was mainly working on was a project called the Intersect, and the purpose of that was to imprint information into the human brain using encoded images, steganography. Most people can't handle it, and apparently it burnt out the brains of a lot of subjects over the time it's been worked on, but it can work with some brains. (he looked up at her before continuing) I apparently have one of those brains, Dad told me that when I was nine or ten I went into his work room and triggered the program to load the information into my head. When Dad found me he was sure that I'd managed to mind wipe myself, but after a couple of minutes I was OK, since then I've had other tests and apparently I have the highest data retention capacity quotient that they've ever seen in their testing, but that comes later. Anyway, Dad thought that if I could handle the upload, then he probably could as well, so he loaded it into himself in hope that he could finish the project quicker to get away from there so he could go and try and find Mom, but his brain didn't handle it as well as mine did, and that was when he really became Crazy Dad."

Chuck stopped briefly to see whether Ellie wanted to ask anything at that point, but she just looked at him so he continued.

"Dad could tell that he was coming apart more and more all the time, and he couldn't find any fix for what was happening to him, so he decided that we'd be better off with a missing dad than a drooling vegetable living with us, and he left. He had his lucid moments and he worked on the problems when he could, in the end he couldn't find a fix for what was happening, but he did manage to create a device that he calls the governor that controlled the symptoms and slowed (maybe even stopped) the degeneration. By that stage, he'd already had too many close calls with the people looking for him, so rather than lead them straight to us, he decided that we'd be safest if he just stayed away. He did try to keep an eye on us from afar, but he had to go deep to hide sometimes, and he lost track of us for a while. He did manage to keep track of me while I was at Stanford, though and, probably due to the fact that his judgement was impaired by his condition, he worked with Bryce Larkin to have me kicked out of Stanford in an attempt to stop me being recruited by the CIA, because of those data retention tests I was talking about."

"Anyway, fast forward to my 26th birthday, when I get an email from my good buddy Bryce and stupidly open it, only to get loaded with the latest version of the Intersect, filled with all the government's secrets. He apparently decided that if he was going to die, I should too, but what he didn't know was that my brain could handle the Intersect, and I survived. Then the next day an angel walked into my life (smiling up at Sarah) and someone not as pretty turned up a bit after that (grinning at Casey), and that brings us up to the point that we told you about where I joined the spy world."

Ellie shoot her head as she tried to assimilate what her brother told her, but one point stuck in her head. "What do you mean, if he was going to die, you should too?"

Chuck looked at Casey and he reluctantly responded. "Larkin broke into the Intersect facility and downloaded a copy of the files before he blew up the facility, killing over twenty people, I was part of the Intersect security and I caught him as he tried to escape and shot him, but he managed to send it to Chuck in the email before he died."

Ellie nodded, either surprisingly unperturbed by this or just in shock, and turned back to Chuck. "So you've got this Intersect in your head, the thing that made Dad crazy and killed other people, but it's not effecting you?"

Chuck looked back at her and decided to give her a straight answer.

"I don't know about not being effected by it, sometimes I have glitches and problems (he snuck a look at Sarah, he'd rather she didn't hear about this but they had agreed to have no secrets between them) and terrible headaches, but I can handle it and use it better than anyone else ever has, and I don't think I'm going crazy, well not much more than I was to start anyway."

Now he had both Ellie and Sarah looking at him with concern, so he tried to deflect by talking about their parents.

"So we at least know the reason why both Mom and Dad left now. If we can work out how to bring down the arms dealer that has her under his control, we can get her home without anyone coming after her, that will be good, won't it?"

Sarah stood up and walked to him, putting her arms around him and kissing him before softly telling him that she loved him, but they would be talking about this later.

Before they finished, Ellie had another difficult question "How long have you known about the Council?" Sarah just smirked at that and handed it over to Chuck to answer, he looked at her for about ten seconds and then gave in.

"I found out about it at the start of my training trip after your wedding, because they knew that Sarah had offered to give up everything and go on the run with me to protect me from the things that you have to do in the spy world. They dragged me into a secret meeting with Auntie Diane, Mom and Dad, and spent the whole night convincing me that the stakes were so high that I had to get the most I could from the training so that we had a chance to fight what we were up against, and that I had to reject Sarah when I met her to run away. (Ellie looked at Sarah, noting the grim look on her face, even though she didn't let go of Chuck's arm) Sarah spent six months believing that I'd rejected her and turned my back on her, and I spent that time terrified that she'd never forgive me or take me back, so I dredged everything I could from that training, determined not to waste it if our life together was ruined. (Sarah spoke up at that point, saying that Chuck was well above them now, and Casey nodded, Chuck squeezed Sarah and smiled at Casey before continuing) When I got back, they called Sarah into a meeting with all of them, and me, and spent half the night convincing her of the threat that we were up against, and that they'd pretty much forced me to do what I did, and somehow she forgave me and took me back (squeezing her again and kissing her on top of the head)"

"So Sarah knew about six months after I did, we wanted to bring Casey into the team but they wouldn't let us because the Council, mainly Mom and Dad, didn't share our trust in him. We had a really bad time after that with someone who was added to the team and we had to do things we didn't want to in an attempt to find out what they were up to (Ellie's expression cleared suddenly and she said "Hannah and that other guy?" Chuck nodded and continued) Hannah was part of it, by the way, Hannah is actually Auntie Diane's daughter Josie, but Sarah had the worst of it, she had to pretend to be interested in this other guy and Hannah was a cover to make it look like I'd moved on to someone else. Other things happened in that period and Casey got kicked out because of something he was blackmailed into doing (Ellie looked at Casey and he indicated that he'd tell her afterwards), then Sarah had to go to Paris with this guy and we knew that he was probably going to try and kill her or something. Sooo, I got Casey to help me save her, and that gave him the leverage he needed to be reinstated and brought into the council. Once Casey was part of of the team again, we managed to get our relationship and moving in together approved, Dad and I fixed the security so we can talk safely without anyone else knowing, and we got to tell you what I've wanted to tell you ever since the start of all this."

Ellie looked thoughtful as she slowly nodded and looked at John, who grunted and then started talking.

"For a start, my real name isn't John Casey, it's Alex Coburn, twenty years ago I was recruited, with lies, to join the NSA, and they made me fake my death so I could start again as John Casey. At that time I was engaged, and I had to leave her behind to become John Casey. About a month and a half ago my old commander, the one who recruited me, came to me to get me to steal something from the CIA vaults. Of course I refused but he showed me the pictures they had of Kathleen, my fiancée, and told me that if I didn't get them what they wanted they'd kill her, making it clear that her death would be a very unpleasant one. To save her I stole what they wanted me to and I was arrested, thanks to Chuck (he added with a smirk). Anyway, to make a long story short, the other side broke me out to get what I stole for them, and these two tried to break me out to save me, so they got arrested too, only their get out of jail card was to catch me and bring me back. They found me and I told them about the threat on Kathleen's life, so Chuck went to protect her while Sarah came with me to help take down the bad guys, when we did that we went to Kathleen's place. Chuck had taken down all the bad guys there, but before we left for them to take me in we found out something else, Kathleen and I have a daughter, called Alex after me. What I did was officially treason, so I should have gone to prison at least, but these two and the General managed to keep me out of prison, and all I got was being kicked out of the service. These two are my partners, whether I'm in the service or not, so when Chuck asked me to help save Sarah of course I agreed, and that's when I found out about the Council and Chuck's plan to get me back into the service and onto the Council's team, and here we are."

By this stage Ellie was looking like she was about to start emulating Linda Blair from the Exorcist (with the head turning thing), so Sarah let go of Chuck's arm and moved to kneel in front of her, saying that they knew she had a lot to process now and that she probably needed time to think about it. At Ellie's nod she told her that she could come to any of them if she wanted to ask anything else, but reminded her that she couldn't tell ANYONE about this, if she did she'd put them all in danger. Ellie nodded again and gave her a hug, standing and going to Chuck to hug him (John too, to his embarrassment) before she went back to her own apartment.

They were surprised by a mad knocking on the door less than a minute after Ellie left and as soon as Chuck opened it she rushed in, looking wild eyed at Casey as she asked. "If you killed Bryce, how the hell was he here at Thanksgiving? You guys told me how he was causing all those problems for Chuck and Sarah."

Casey looked at Chuck, as he had no idea of how to answer that. Chuck scratched his head, but conceded that the technical things were his area to answer.

"Well we're not totally sure about that, we do know that the other side revived him because they believed that he was the one who had the Intersect, but as far as I know no-one has discovered any information about the process used or how they managed to revive him after he'd been gone for a period. It had to be hours, at least, before they got him back and revived him."

Ellie pinned him with her stare as she tried to determine whether he was serious about what he was telling her, once she decided that he was, she asked if they could get the files from the tests that they ran on him, because this was something that she had to know. Chuck mused that if the General couldn't get them through the proper channels, Dad could probably get them via other means, and said he'd follow it up with them, because the whole back from the dead thing was something that had always bothered him as well. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sarah and Casey nodding, as they'd all like the answer to that question.

Chuck passed Ellie's request for Bryce's test results to the Council, and meanwhile the team continued on with its normal jobs. Now that the problem in the team had been eliminated, they were back to their usual success rate, even with the volume of evidence and operations that they were moved into the Council's sphere. They were still maintaining the usual cover of Chuck being rather less than Sarah or Casey in the "normal" agent skillsets, and in truth neither Chuck or the others were unhappy about that, he still didn't like killing unless necessary, and Sarah and Casey preferred Chuck to stay the way he was, without a killer's instincts. They knew that when he had to be he was a lethal weapon and unstoppable, but otherwise he was, well, Chuck.

Chuck and Sarah were keeping up their training and sparring sessions, and now that they were safe from observation they were free to do the training that they wanted to. In addition to this Casey was joining them now, he still had a hard time believing that Chuck was stronger than he was now, but once he saw Chuck wearing just a pair of shorts when they were working out, he understood a bit better, the hard chiselled muscle masses that made up his whole body now were quite impressive. They all understood that Casey wasn't going to get close to Chuck's level in any martial arts, by most standards he was good, but Sarah was so good that at half his weight she could match or beat him, and she was struggling to get closer to Chuck's new skill levels, so adding that to the level of muscle density that meant that Chuck was stronger than him, there was no chance of being in his league, but he could learn from Chuck and get a lot better. He never had any intention of going toe to toe with Chuck in a real fight, but working with him so that he could best lesser mortals, hell yes!

Given how irritating everything to do with the Buy More and their menial jobs was becoming for all of them and the fact that their "spy boss" was part of the team (as well as an honorary Aunt), Chuck came up with a proposal for them to scrap their cover jobs and start up a small security firm. Chuck would be handling most of the cyber security, Casey was the nominal expert on physical security, and Sarah was supposedly running the office and assisting on engagements. The proposal included a cost effective plan to remodel the Orange Orange into the small office space needed for a three person business, along with a cover story that the OO had been failing due to lack of business and they'd picked up the premises for a song, so the General pushed through the approvals for the proposal, and for their covers to be switched to Hunter Security.

The second Chuck and Casey handed their resignations to Big Mike, Chuck started a countdown to the meltdown, and sure enough it was less than thirty seconds before he started getting the snivelling diatribe about how he had to take Morgan with him, and how he couldn't leave his het... Chuck stopped Morgan cold before he could finish his usual "hetero life partner" line, telling him that it was ridiculous, embarrassing and creepy and he NEVER wanted to hear him say it ever again. Any adult would have managed to get a hint THAT big, but not Morgan. When he asked why Chuck was doing this and Chuck gave him the cover story, that Sarah had got word from management that the store was being closed and that they'd be getting rid of the premises as quickly (IE cheaply) as possible, they had talked to Casey about an idea for a small security company that they'd discussed over dinner one night, and they'd all pooled what money they had to make it happen, Morgan started in again asking, or rather demanding, that Chuck make a position at their company for him.

Chuck tried to be patient as he kept re-iterating the cover story that the three of them sunk every cent they had into getting the business started so they could finally do something that was more rewarding and that they'd be struggling to make ends meet for a long time before it really got off the ground, so there was no way it could support anyone else, but Morgan just ploughed ahead saying that he needed to replace Sarah with him. At that Chuck just looked at him with the figurative temperature plummeting and said that Sarah put her money into this idea, and she was the woman he loved, so he was not going to replace her with ANYONE, he finished by telling Morgan that he needed to go away before he said something that would ruin their friendship forever. The response he got was the type of thing he expected, though, "You can't do this to me man, you can't let her take you away from me, we're meant to be together, bros before hos."

At that Chuck grabbed handful of his shirt and pulled him up to his tip toes as he hissed in his face that he needed to get it through his head that it was Sarah that he was going to be with, she was the only partner that he was ever going to have, and if he ever referred to her as a ho or anything else derogative again, he would be severely hurt, opening his fist to drop him to the floor and turning away, only to have Morgan come back with "You can't trust her, I bet she doesn't care about you, not the way I do, as soon as that ex of her's comes back again you know she'll dump you and run off with him, like any other ho."

Chuck started to turn to go at him but Casey managed to grab him and stop him, though Chuck pulled him forward a couple of steps before he managed to contain him, whispering in his ear that killing the little maggot would destroy all their plans and that, much as the pusswad deserved it, Chuck would feel guilty afterwards. It just wasn't worth doing anything to him. With that, and keeping a firm grip on his arm, Casey marched Chuck out the door, all the while being close to pissing himself because he was quite aware of what Chuck was capable of now, and the maggot had pushed him over the edge, Casey was pretty much expecting to be put into hospital or worse when he grabbed Chuck, but he had to try something before everything went to shit.

Chuck calmed a little as Casey walked him across the parking lot to the Orange Orange, and as Sarah saw them coming she stepped out to meet him with a hug. She sent him in to get himself something and calm down, and stayed outside to hear what happened from Casey. When Casey told her, she started heading for the figure standing outside the Buy More entrance glaring at them, but Casey grabbed her and told her exactly what he'd told Chuck, except for the bit about feeling guilty. At that she stopped struggling but locked eyes with the little bastard across the car park, until a van suddenly pulled up and he was dragged into it before it sped away.

Casey was fairly sure what had just happened and pulled out his phone to call the General, asking whether she had ordered the pickup. She confirmed that analysts monitoring the Buy More had flagged the altercation and notified her, and due to the knowledge that he had of Agent Carmichael and their operation there, it was deemed too much of a risk of him telling everything he knew to other parties in a fit of spite, so he was picked up immediately for relocation to somewhere secure to protect the operation. Casey had a grim smile on his face as he thanked her and hung up, he repeated what he'd just been told to Sarah and she gave a small vindictive grin, which faded as she glanced in at Chuck, because she knew that Casey was right, Chuck would feel guilty about this when he found out. They decided that they had to tell Chuck what had just happened, but when they did he was surprisingly accepting of it, the red mist in front of his eyes had faded but he was still incredibly angry, so he just shrugged.

About ten minutes later Casey got a text advising them of an immediate briefing in Castle, so they headed downstairs. The General was on screen when they arrived and she got straight to the point, in view of the upsetting incident that had just occurred, and that it was a known fact that the Intersect didn't operate properly when the host, Chuck, was in emotional turmoil, it had been decided to send them to an island resort in the Caribbean for a week to allow the Orange Orange to be remodelled into Hunter Security. Therefore, they were to go home to pack their bags and head to the airport where an agency jet was waiting to fly them down. At that Sarah and Chuck headed home to pack, while Casey made a quick trip to the Buy More to drop off their keys etc and clear out both their lockers before he headed home. The others were waiting when he got there (as they were all going in his car), but it only took him ten minutes to pack a bag and they were on their way.

Goodbye Buy More, goodbye Orange Orange, hello future.


	6. Hunter

**Usual disclaimer for the land of litigation, no rights to any characters other than those created here.**

When they got back from their "vacation" (given that they were receiving and processing information for the Council for much of the time they were there, it wasn't quite that), they were all a little more relaxed and enthusiastic about starting their new cover jobs. As expected, the agency had done a good job of setting up their little office space, so it was comfortable and cosy. The furniture and equipment were tasteful but modest, consistent with being set up on a budget but carefully selected to give a good impression. Part of Sarah's role was officially receptionist/assistant, so her desk was in the foyer area, while Chuck and Casey both had offices that were big enough to have client meetings in, but Sarah spent most of her time working in Chuck's office with him anyway. The entrance to Castle was now located in a store room off the break room that they had out back.

Two things that Chuck had implemented to better control the environment were the use of two way mirrors made of armour glass for the glass out front, which gave them visibility of the outside world without anyone seeing in and quite reasonable security, and the front door being kept electronically locked so that anyone wanting to enter had to be buzzed in from one of their desks. With the mirror glass, no-one knew whether there was anyone inside or not, so ignoring unwanted visitors was easy.

To keep up appearances, Hunter Security actually had to have clients, but between the contracts allocated to them by the government and the contacts that Chuck had from his years of running tech support for the Buy More, they had quite enough work to convince anyone watching that they were a viable small business. Many of the actual jobs that they did for clients were little different from the installs that Chuck had been managing for about 8 years now (computer systems, security systems or whatever), and depending on the size of the job it could be one of them or all three on-site to do it. They used the apparent success of the company to justify the fact that Chuck had the Hunter equivalent of a nerd herder, one of Orion's military spec minivans that was normally displaying a basic tired looking white paint job with the Hunter Security name and logo on each side and the rear. It fit the part of a work van as they were always taking it out on their jobs, legitimate or otherwise.

While they still had to work the cover jobs as well as their TWO other jobs, it was far better than it had been before, they'd all been on the verge of losing it, Chuck and Casey from dealing with the rampant stupidity and politics of the Buy More (and stupid customers), and Sarah from dealing with the boredom and horny retards who kept coming in to leer at her and try out inappropriate suggestions or stupid pick up lines on her. At least now, their cover jobs actually involved real work that was related to what they did, they didn't have to wear stupid uniforms and they didn't have to put up with retards ordering them about for a power trip.

The success that they were having working out of their new cover lives was good for all of them, Chuck, Sarah and Casey were happy with their lives and accomplishments, and the volume of successes that they were having now gave plenty of supporting evidence to justify the General's decisions to allow the relationship, living arrangements and new cover business. (Not to mention that the business was actually profitable enough for them to be paying themselves fairly well, on top of their CIA or NSA salaries. They'd used the argument that, in case they were ever looked into, they needed to operate Hunter Security as a legitimate business, which meant that the three of them had full ownership of the business and the property upstairs. They had to cover all the operating costs of the business, but they could do what they liked with the rest. Some admin types tried to argue with this, but it was signed off on the basis that it made the cover a lot more airtight, and it would be less drain on agency budgets as the costs of maintaining the cover business were their responsibility now, so they got their way.)

When Ellie had had time to think about what they had talked through with her about the Council and their family, she was able to come to an acceptance of it and move forward. Just as with Chuck, what they went through alone throughout their childhoods and teen years was going to take her a long time to get over, but when she had the full story about what happened with her parents, especially her mother, she managed to stop hating them as much for what they'd done. She thought about the wording she used with herself, and had to admit that while she would have preferred to be able to use "resentment", if she was honest with herself "hate" was more accurate. She went through all those years without the support, protection or love of the people she was supposed to be able to rely on. She spent the time when she was supposed to be having fun with her friends working two jobs after school to pay the bills and trying to raise a brother who was only 3 ½ years younger than her by herself. She was getting groped and propositioned by dirty old men when she was working those jobs, and instead of her first time being with the sort of sweet boy that she'd dreamed of, she was forced to submit under threat of violence to an older boy that she'd accepted a lift from to get home from work in the middle of the night. Yes, she hated her parents for putting her and Chuck through all of that, she'd even resented Chuck at times through those years, none of it was his fault but he was the only one who was there to take it out on.

What Ellie wondered now was how much of that she could manage to let go of, she had a chance to get her parents back, but could she put those years behind her enough to open her heart to them again? For now she was prepared to try and talk to them and get to know them at least, and she had been requested by Auntie Diane and Uncle Bryan (yes, she did remember him too from when she was a little girl) to do full physical and neurological tests on Chuck to ascertain what his condition really was with the Intersect and after the intensive training he did, as well as provide medical care for the three of them if they needed it. While the idea of injuries and possible issues scared her a little, being able to make sure that Chuck, Sarah and John were OK was something that she was quite prepared to take on.

When she was running through the tests on Chuck, trying not to think about the fact that this was her baby brother when she saw what he'd put himself through and had inflicted on him, Chuck raised an issue that he'd been thinking of for a while. Given that he had some issues and their Dad had serious issues relating to the Intersect, and Ellie had a Neurologist's training while he and their Dad were the computer whizzes, he sounded her out about the three of them working together to try and fix the issues in the Intersect, and make it better. When she stopped to think about it, it made a lot of sense, Chuck and her father knew just about everything about programming systems and her father had all the original coding for the Intersect, so with her to give them directions on how their systems would best interface with the human brain, they should be able to improve it, maybe they could even cure their Dad so he was whole again. When they raised the matter with their Dad he was all for the idea and they started, mostly he worked remotely in one of his safe houses, but when the work was getting tricky he'd come for a visit.

While fixing the Intersect and running their business was exciting, they still had the government and Council missions and investigations to do, so they didn't have a lot of down time. At least now they were at Hunter, unless they were dealing with a customer at the time, they could leave at the drop of a hat. The problem was that when they were running the government missions, they couldn't use their tac suits, and therefore were more at risk, but they did have armour cloth gear etc that they could wear under their normal gear which significantly improved the safety factor. Chuck worried about Sarah when they went on infiltration missions though, as the outfits that she had to wear seriously limited the amount of protective covering that she could hide under them. It took quite a bit of arguing but eventually she agreed to stand behind him if they got into a firefight under those circumstances, as the amount of coverage he had meant that he could hide nearly a full suit of armour cloth (or more) under his clothes, and that could protect both of them. They also weren't happy that they were supposed to use the tranq guns that the agencies had, because they were clumsy and pathetic compared to Orion's, so much so that they did cheat and use Orion's when there was little risk of being discovered. For firearms, though, they had to stick with the standard issue weapons as ballistic analysis would have shown up the non-standard weapons.

After running all the tests and seeing what Chuck had made himself into, Ellie decided that she wanted to do something about her own fitness and asked if she could start running and working out with them, which they of course were all for. She started out a bit rocky, but once she got going she picked up at a surprising rate, and she was enjoying spending time and working out with them so much that when Sarah suggested teaching her martial arts, she jumped at the idea. All three of them took turns teaching her different styles and methods, and she was a little surprised to find that John was a very good and considerate teacher. Devon was making loud noises about her spending more time with them than she was with him now, so after silently checking with the others (Ellie had to find out how he did that) Chuck invited him to join them, but after a few sessions Devon begged out because his ego couldn't handle being shown up by Chuck, Sarah and Ellie (John was an alpha male so he was prepared to back down with him).

With Chuck and Sarah's (and Casey's) support, along with the family that she had back now, Ellie felt much better about herself, so she decided to stand up for herself at last and just told him that she was going to keep on training with her brother and his friends, so he could join them or do his own thing, the choice was his. When Devon got snippy because they showed him up (in his eyes, they didn't care), things got difficult between them. Ellie admitted that she shouldn't have been surprised, most of their relationship was based on sex and what Devon wanted. When she thought about it, nearly all her life she had been giving up on what she wanted and giving in to what others wanted, she didn't blame Chuck for her teenage years because he had no more choice in it than she had, but the only time when she was moving forward and following her own dreams was once he got the scholarship to Stanford and pretty much told her that he'd be OK now, so she should look after herself for once. That was when she got herself locked into the trauma and neurosurgery tracks with the scholarships and positions she'd won, so when she took up with Devon she couldn't change her direction to match what he wanted. She admitted that it had been a fun ride with him, but there was always the never ending frat boy behaviour that was aggravating and insulting, and she should have seen the warning bells when his parents decided to take over their wedding and he just said that they had to go along with them. While she had given Chuck shit for destroying her original wedding, she was glad she wasn't married in the wedding that they dictated, and then Chuck and the others had given her the wedding that she actually wanted, exactly what she'd dreamed of, she never did find out how he managed to pay for that, she'd have to ask Sarah when he wasn't around. Anyway, she wasn't giving in this time, it was her time to do something for herself and if he didn't like it, tough.

A few days later Devon informed her that his parents were coming over to LA for an extended conference, so they'd be staying with them for the coming week. Ellie looked at him and said "OK", then pulled out her phone and called Sarah. "Hi Sarah it's Ellie, could I stay with you guys next week, please? Well our place is going to be crowded next week so I thought if it was OK with you, I could get more peace and quiet at your place? Thanks, you're the best, give my love to Chuck, bye." Then she looked back at Devon and said "All set" and walked off. He went after her saying that she couldn't do that, what would his parents think? At that she stopped and turned back to him, saying she didn't care, he was playing some game because he wasn't getting things the way he wanted and TOLD her that they would be staying without asking or discussing it first, so he could spend time with Mommy and Daddy and she'd spend the time with her brother and hopefully soon to be sister in law. With that she picked up her keys and took off to see Sarah and Chuck and talk about this.

When she saw Ellie walking up to the office Sarah went to the door to open it and meet her with open arms. Unfortunately Chuck had a client with him but Casey had heard Sarah's side of the call and came out to tell them to take his office, he grabbed the paperwork he was dealing with and took it out to the table in the break room, but not before Ellie wrapped him in a hug and said "Thanks John." The two of them were in there for half an hour before Chuck could wind up his client meeting and see the client out. Chuck knocked on the door and waited to be invited in, Ellie had finished crying by then but Sarah was looking furious. After a hug, Ellie explained to him what had happened, and she wasn't surprised when after a brief eye communication with Sarah Chuck told her she could move in today if she wanted to. Ellie looked from him, to Sarah and back and said "That's what I'm talking about! You'd never make a commitment that effects both of you without asking Sarah first, even if I can't understand how you communicate. Why can't my husband do that much for me?" Chuck just kissed her on the top of her head and said that he was apparently raised better than Devon was, and Sarah leaned in to hug her and thank her for raising Chuck to be the man that he was. Once Ellie was OK, they closed up shop and went home, with Sarah driving Ellie's car.

When they got there Sarah told Ellie that she'd come and help her with her bags, when Ellie tried to say that she'd be OK Sarah just repeated what she'd said, so Ellie gave in with a smile and said OK. Before they went in Chuck pulled Sarah into a hug and whispered in her ear "Try not to damage him, they may manage to sort this out yet." Sarah reached up to kiss him lightly and answered "We'll see." With that Chuck took their bags into their apartment, leaving the door open as they'd be over in a few minutes.

When Ellie and Sarah walked into the apartment Devon was sitting on the couch, Ellie looked at him and just said that she was staying with Chuck and Sarah for a while before heading for their bedroom with Sarah, and less than ten minutes later they walked back out with a few bags and a number of dresses on hangers. Devon tried to say something before she cut him off, saying that he needed to work out whether he wanted to be her partner or not, if he thought she was going to take being lorded over and TOLD what was happening he was sorely mistaken, and if he thought that was what a marriage was they were done. With that they turned to walk out the door, Devon took a step towards them but when Sarah turned to look at him, the look in her eyes him terrified him, so he just stood there, frozen, as they left.

As soon as they walked into the apartment Chuck left what he was doing in the kitchen and came to take the bags and dresses and put them in the room for her. While he was doing that Sarah led Ellie into the lounge room and sat her down, pouring her a glass of wine before going to the kitchen to finish up the cheese and fruit platter that Chuck had been putting together. As Chuck was coming back from hanging up the dresses etc for Ellie there was a knock on the door so he answered it and let Casey in. With Casey there, Chuck went to grab a bottle of whiskey and a few tumblers to bring back to the table (Casey was never a wine person), and they settled down to help Ellie forget her afternoon. Drinks and nibbles faded into dinner which in turn faded into a movie night where the two girls got comfortable, using the guys as pillows. By the time the Movie was halfway through, Ellie was out cold in Casey's lap, wiped out by the emotional turmoil and alcohol. Chuck asked Casey if he'd like him to get her off him and put her to bed, but Casey just looked a little embarrassed when he said she was fine, he wouldn't want to wake her up as she'd had a hard day. So Chuck left her there, wrapped around Casey's arm with a contented expression on her face and Sarah looked up with a mischievous look in her eye then pulled him down for a kiss, sharing a smile before they went back to watching the movie.

The next morning, Ellie woke up with a hangover and was embarrassed to realise that she was a little disappointed to be waking up alone. Sure enough, when she opened her eyes there was a glass of water and headache tablets beside the bed, so she quickly downed them and pulled on a robe to go downstairs. Chuck was in the kitchen (again, Sarah was training him well) making breakfast and asked her if she'd like anything. When he asked, she was surprised to find that she was hungry, so he made her some pancakes, as that was their comfort food. Watching him juggling the pans on the stove and materials from the counter she wondered when he'd become this domestic, he could hardly cook before. When she asked him he tapped his head and said that for some reason (presumably for cover to act as a chef) there was a full set of culinary skills in the Intersect, and he'd used those as a base to learn how to cook properly. "And he does a wonderful job of pandering to my every whim, because I still can't cook." Sarah said as she came up behind her, giving her a hug and asking how she felt. She looked at her bleary eyed and just said "Rather second hand." Sarah grinned at her and leaned over the counter to kiss the chef as he handed her her plate, settling down beside Ellie to eat.

When there was a knock on the door Chuck just called out that it was open as they knew it was Casey. When he came in wearing his running gear he took in them in their pyjamas and Chuck in the kitchen and said "You're not running this morning?" Chuck looked up with a grin and asked if he could bribe Casey out of it with breakfast, too, getting a "May as well." in response as he pulled out the chair on the other side of Ellie, who reached out to give him a hug and thank him for being nice to her last night. Casey blushed and said it was nothing while Chuck and Sarah grinned at them. Once they'd eaten and Chuck had cleaned up the kitchen, Casey pointed out that they should get to work and Chuck nodded, but Sarah told them that she felt like taking the day off. Chuck said OK and pulled her in for a hug before he went up to get ready, whispering in her ear "Are you sure?" The whispered response was "It's OK, I'm a real girl now, with a heart and everything." Chuck grinned at that and kissed her then headed upstairs.

When the boys had gone to work they pottered about for a bit, finishing the clean-up that Chuck had started, then curled up in the lounge and talked. One of the first things Ellie asked was what had come to mind a few days ago, how did Chuck pay for her wedding? Sarah explained about the two years back pay that they gave him when he turned down the offer to work for the NSA after his father suppressed the first Intersect that he had in his head, when Ellie started to interrupt Sarah said she'd tell her about that in due time before going back to the story, she explained about Ted Roark turning up with his henchmen and the battle that they'd had in the reception area (grinning as she said "yes, your wedding was crashed by henchmen AND paratroopers"), and how torn up about destroying her wedding Chuck was, so when they were discussing it with his father in his room, Chuck handed her the severance check and asked if she'd help him give Ellie the wedding that she wanted, they'd called Casey and his team in to help (that's how we got the beach closed off, calling it a national security emergency) and just managed to pull it together in time. Ellie just looked at Sarah with her mouth open and then asked just how much that cost him, when Sarah told her the figure she couldn't believe that he could give up all that for her. Sarah leant forward and took her hands, saying "Chuck knows that he owes you everything, you're the reason he's who he is, he loves you and he'd do anything for you, and so would I for giving me the man I love." No much was said for a while after that as Ellie was crying in her arms, but when she'd settled down she reminded Sarah about the FIRST Intersect, so Sarah explained about the events that led to Chuck loading the Intersect 2.0, and then went on to tell her more about the training and the Council.

When Chuck got home that night, Ellie hugged him for her wedding and hit him for loading the new Intersect, he pretty much expected the latter but not the former, looking at Sarah to get a shrug and "She asked". He could see that the girls had been working out during the day as the furniture was still moved back, but when he asked whether they were coming for a run they agreed and went to get changed as he texted Casey "Run in 5" before getting changed himself.

Aside from Ellie's problem, things had been going well, so they should have been expecting something to happen, but they didn't expect this. Ellie was contacted by a Ring agent who had been inserted to gain her confidence while she and Devon were on Doctors Without Borders in Africa. Before she was brought into the family secrets she would have fallen for his spiel, but she managed to keep her calm and play along, and contacted the team as soon as he was gone. Even with the risk, it was agreed that she would to play along to find out what they wanted, in hope that they could get some useful intel. Unfortunately she wasn't getting much from him but at least they were monitoring her to keep her safe.

Then they got the BIG shock, when they were called into a review meeting with the corrupt oversight committee who had forced Shaw on the team to justify the continuance of the Intersect team and Daniel Shaw walked in. The Ring must have revived him the same way they revived Bryce Larkin, but they had a solid story about him being undercover and were obviously grooming him for higher positions. In the ensuing disaster Chuck and Sarah got arrested but Casey got away, and tried to save his daughter as he was sure the Ring would come after her. He had been talking to her as a customer for a while and trying to get to know her, so was afraid that they might know about her if they'd been following him. When the Ring agents got there soon after he did he took them out, but then he had to kidnap her to get her away. As soon as he had a chance he told her the truth about who he was and gave her the key and directions to get the money etc he'd stashed away, then made her run when the agency caught up with him and he was arrested. The General was also arrested by the Ring's people.

In the meantime Orion managed to release Chuck, and they went back in to rescue Sarah and Casey. When they went into the facility that they located from what Ellie told them about her meetings with the Ring agent, they found the type of lab that they must have used to revive Larkin and Shaw, but nothing else that was useful at the time, and as they were leaving Shaw had a team there waiting for them. Shaw came out with the same type of smug crap that he always had (if a lot crazier than he used to be), and when Chuck tried to get control of the situation by baiting him into a fight, Shaw tried to use what they thought they knew about Chuck and emotional issues effecting the Intersect and pulled a gun to shoot his father. Chuck stepped in front of the bullet, relying on the armour cloth undershirt to stop it, then engaged Shaw and took him out. Unfortunately he couldn't protect his father from all the other weapons that were being pointed at them, so he surrendered. They were carted back to the facility where the armoured transport that had Sarah and Casey already loaded was waiting and were forced in at gunpoint.

Ellie saw Chuck and her dad being brought out by the Ring team and hid as they left, then immediately called the Operational Director's number to tell them what was happening. Luckily it was Uncle Bryan's slot at the time, so he quickly told her what to do, sending her back to Chuck's "work van" to follow them. When they stopped she saw Chuck and her Dad being forced into the armoured transport and she kept telling Uncle Bryan what was happening. Once again, when the the transport left, Uncle Bryan told her to follow it. When they stopped, Uncle Bryan told her to move forward a little and then stop, so that he could activate the van's weapons system remotely to blow the front off the transport before directing her to grab a couple of charges out of the console and blow open the rear of the transport to let the others out. She grabbed the charges and ran to the truck, with him talking her through what she had to do Ellie blew the locks on the outer doors, and then blew the lock on the cage inside. As soon as the cage was open Chuck grabbed her and they all ran to the van, once they were safely inside he hugged her and thanked her, but then Shaw and the others were crawling out of the truck and started shooting at them. They knew that Shaw would be calling in more support, so they took off.

They couldn't go back to Castle, or home, because the Ring had control of all the official agencies and they knew that they'd come after them, so they went to one of the mobile bases to plan their next steps. The first step was to hack into the CIA detention centre systems to locate the General and open a channel to talk to her. When they did they had a bit of a win, in that Shaw, in his megalomania, just had to gloat to her about what the plan was, so she was able to repeat everything to them. Given that the Ring was on the verge of taking control of the entire international intelligence community, what was in front of them was rather daunting, but they'd taken down major organisations before, and that was without the rest of the family behind them.

While this was going on Casey contacted Alex on the phone he'd left with everything else for her, and once he confirmed that she and her mother were safe, he slipped out to pick them up and stash them in another one of the mobile bases, which took that worry off him so he could get his head in the game.

For all their resources, they couldn't take on the entire intelligence community (and government) in a full frontal assault, so they went with using the overblown self confidence and superiority of the other side against them. The purpose of the latest move to get the General arrested was to have Shaw replace her and trigger the final takeover of the highest positions at a secret conference between all the agency heads and the people they reported to, so they decided to stage their retaliation there to show the remaining "straight" members of the conference exactly what was going on. Chuck went in and conned Shaw into identifying the heads of the Ring before baiting him into repeating his speech to the General, while streaming the whole thing live throughout the conference so everyone heard it. Luckily there were still enough straight people with authority in the community and the Ring's people were overpowered and arrested. Shaw was rather battered when he was taken into custody because Chuck had also baited him into attacking him, and then he took out his anger at what he'd tried to do to Sarah and his father and everyone else on him. Chuck remained in control and didn't inflict any permanent damage on him, but he knew how to inflict punishment without life threatening injuries and he took him to the edge before he let up. Chuck wasn't proud of what he'd done, but the man tried to take away everything he loved and he could hardly control his rage at that point.

**A/N I expect that most won't like such a dark back story for Ellie, but a teenaged girl trying to make money to support herself and her brother after school (without doing THAT) would probably be stuck with doing waitress etc jobs through the night, with the handsy sleezebag customers and dodgy co-workers and everything else nasty that comes with it, in the world that they created for Ellie's teenage years, it wouldn't have been a good time for her.**


	7. Hello Kitty

**This request was always on the cards.  
**

**(If anyone is interested in Carina's back story in my 'verse, it's in Scarlet)**

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters not created here.**

Given the way that the Council's team had grown in the past year, first Chuck then Sarah, then Josie as brought in to assist Chuck, Casey was brought on board and now Ellie had accepted her role in the group, some of the group (under the instigation of Chuck) were starting to look into how many would be needed to make a serious attempt at bringing down Volkoff Industries so that Mary would be free to come home to her family. Of the original Council, only Bryan and Mary were up to field operations any more and Mary was still trapped with Volkoff (though when the time came she could hopefully provide support from inside), so the newer additions would have to handle most of the operation, and only three of them (Sarah, Casey and Chuck) were really field agents. Unfortunately, three to five field agents wouldn't be enough to pull off an operation of this scale without relying on an incredible amount of luck, so they were considering who could be trusted to approach about this.

When they were discussing this in Chuck and Sarah's apartment, Chuck and Sarah looked at each other and grinned, as the first person was obvious but Casey wouldn't be happy with this idea because of their history. Still, they had to start somewhere, so Sarah put the name out there, Carina.

Casey started coming out with the expected arguments, but he said a few things that went over the line and, surprisingly, Chuck reacted before Sarah could jump down Casey's throat. It was obvious that something Casey said had made him flash on Carina's file, and what he'd seen left him disgusted, sick and angry, very angry. He started out right in Casey's face but forced himself to back down as he told him that he didn't know anything about Carina's past, and if he'd gone through anything like what she had he'd have been sucking on his gun a long time ago. At that he looked around the group and said "So we're sounding Carina out about joining the group?" in a tone that brooked no argument. When no-one said anything he nodded to say that the discussion was finished and left the room.

When they went to bed Sarah asked how bad it was, when he just answered that she was raped at twelve and it got worse from there, she buried her face in his chest and cried. After a while she looked at him and asked whether the file showed that she had been suicidal for much of the time she was an agent? He shook his head, saying that she must have managed to hide that from the powers that be. After that he was obviously trying to say something but couldn't, when she asked him what it was he said that there were two links to her in Carina's file, they were important but he couldn't talk about them at the moment. Sarah nodded, worried but accepting what he said, obviously it was more than the fact that they'd worked together, that was already established. Before she went to sleep, she sent Carina a text asking when she could come to LA?

When they got up in the morning Chuck turned to her and said that they needed to talk about the connections to her in Carina's file, though he obviously didn't want to. She nodded, pensively wrapping her arms around her knees as she looked at him. Chuck struggled over which topic to bring up first, both would be traumatic for her, but one was horrifying. Eventually he decided to go with the easier one first and told her what he'd found out from Carina's birth certificate, while she was amazed that he'd found her actual birth certificate she couldn't see the connection to her, until he told her that the father's name listed was the name that her father was using before the one he used when she was born, and pointed out how many similarities there were between her and Carina, in particular their eyes. After that she was in a daze and vaguely registered the rest of what he was saying about how they could talk to Carina and maybe track down her father, if they really wanted to know they could get DNA tests done? When it had had time to settle in she started to get out of bed and then stopped when she remembered that he'd said that there were two things and asked about the other matter.

Chuck started avoiding her eyes and said that it could wait, but unfortunately that only made Sarah more determined to find out what it was. Eventually he gave in and said that Carina's records showed the nature and content of the "special" training she was forced to go through at the Farm, and the flash also showed who else was forced to go through that training. Sarah went white when he said that as it all came flooding back, what had happened back then, and she broke down in tears, saying that he couldn't look at her the same way knowing that. Eventually he picked her up and turned her around so that she was looking him the eye when he told her that it changed nothing in regard to how he felt about her, but he wanted to track down the ones who did that to her and Carina and extract retribution on them. Looking into his eyes like that, it was like the day she'd told him her dark secrets, she expected to see disgust in his eyes, but in fact all she she saw was his love and anguish for her.

They held each other for a while, until she had recovered. She kissed him and told him that she'd be OK, and that they needed to get going if they were going to get to work. He looked into her eyes with the unspoken question of whether she was really OK, so she smiled and nodded, kissing him and pushing him away so she could get up and head for the shower.

In the office later, when she had had time to think about what Chuck had said, she called her mother and asked if she had any pictures of her father from around the time when she was born? Emma said that she thought so, and she would have a look for them before asking why she was interested? Sarah's breath caught as she tried to answer, after a couple of false starts she said that she couldn't go into it yet but if she could find the pictures, it would be a help. Chuck came up behind her and put his arms around her as she was talking, and when Emma worriedly asked her if she was OK, she leaned back into him as she told her "Not really, but I will be." Afterwards she went down to Castle and spent an hour shooting targets to pieces, targets that her mind pasted faces from her past onto. That gave her a little bit of relief from what had been building up in her since she heard what Chuck told her that morning.

Casey steered clear of them much of the day, he wanted to apologise for what he'd said when he'd dropped back into "old Casey" mode and started mouthing off about Carina the way he used to, but didn't really know how to word the apology. He hadn't realised what he said until Chuck was in his face and furious, and to tell the truth he'd never been more afraid than he was of Chuck at that point, they knew what he could do nowadays, and he'd never seen him so incensed and out of control than he'd been at that moment. He knew that Sarah had been furious with him, too, but nothing like the same level. Eventually he decided that he had to say something, so he went to Chuck's office to talk to them. "Chuck, Sarah, I'm sorry about what I said last night, I was wrong and I shouldn't have said any of those things, it started out just responding to the old Carina but I went way too far." They looked at him for about 10-20 seconds and then Chuck waved him to a seat and explained that it wasn't so much what he'd said, but what was in the flash that his words triggered that set him off. Casey looked at him and asked "It was that bad, huh?", Chuck just nodded and told him that if he'd seen what had been done to her for pretty much her whole life, he'd want to be part of wiping out the people who did that to her. Both Sarah and Casey turned in shock to Chuck at that, to hear him saying calmly and with conviction that people should be killed for what they had done, that wasn't Chuck. Casey looked at him for a while and then nodded, saying "I AM sorry for what I said, I shouldn't have said that" before standing and going back to his own office.

Things were OK between them after that, still a bit brittle but their trust in each other was back, and they continued with their missions for the government and the Council. One thing that was different for a while was that Chuck was more aggressive in his dealings with the enemy, they all realised that this was his way of releasing some of what came up from the flash. Sarah was concerned that he was shooting more than incapacitating now, but accepted it when he identified most of the ones killed as rapists, knowing that she was as much a reason for his actions as Carina was, and knowing that it wasn't random executions, they were in firefights with them when the shootings happened, so he was pretty much doing what they were doing.

A couple of weeks after Sarah sent her the text, Carina responded to say that she'd finished her current mission and would be there that weekend. Emma had found the pictures of Jack that Sarah asked for and Chuck had gone over to pick them up, so they were ready to sit down and talk with her, though Sarah wasn't sure how ready she was for one of these discussions.

When Carina breezed in she had her normal face on, but she immediately picked up on the tension in the three of them, and there was also the question of why Chuck's sister was staying with Chuck and Sarah when her own apartment was less than twenty yards away? They dealt with the original question first and went through the issues that they all got frustrated about with the ones above them being corrupt and/or dirty, and that there was a group that was trying to do something about that. When they asked her if she'd be interested in joining them she didn't hesitate to say "yes", because these three (especially Sarah) were the people she trusted and respected most in the world. When they told her about Chuck and the Intersect, she was surprised but it did explain many of the questions she'd had since she first met him.

The hits kept on coming when they told her about Chuck's parents and Sarah's mother, Bryan (she remembered him from the time he'd saved Sarah when they were pinned down in that Warehouse in Italy), the General and Roan Montgomery, it was at that point that Sarah dropped the bombshell, after talking about what a family affair the Council basically was, Sarah asked Carina what she remembered about her father, Carina recounted the things her mother had told her when she was a little girl, wondering where this was going until Sarah asked whether she'd seen pictures of him and when she said yes, laid a picture in front of her and asked if that was him. She looked at the picture for about twenty seconds before looking up to say yes, and ask why Sarah had pictures of her father? In response Sarah just put another picture beside the first of him standing with her mother, who was holding a baby in her arms. When Sarah was born, her mother looked much like Sarah did now, so there was little question who she was, or who the baby was. For the next five minutes they experienced something that none of them ever had, Carina was speechless, she was so shocked that she barely registered when Chuck sat beside her and put his arm around her.

When Carina had regained control of herself, and her speech, she demanded to know what was going on (though she didn't push Chuck away, she needed that stability). Chuck explained that he'd flashed on her file when they were discussing asking her to join the group, and when he saw her father's name on her birth certificate he'd made the connection to the alias that Sarah's father was using at the time. He then went on to point out the same similarities between them that he had to Sarah, which led to Sarah looking at her hopefully and saying that they'd always felt like sisters, hadn't they? At that she relaxed and smiled back at her, saying "Yeah, we have".

Carina looked from Chuck to Sarah at that point, asking where were they going to go from here? Chuck pointed out the easiest way of getting confirmation would be to run DNA tests on the three of them. Carina nodded but pointed that finding their father to get a sample would probably be difficult as she knew what he did, Chuck waved that away, saying that he could find him, and Casey stepped in to say that he'd get the sample if Chuck told him where to go (he still felt guilty about what he'd said to start this) Chuck and Sarah looked at each other and nodded, understanding what Casey was trying to say, and Sarah said "That's the way we'll do it then".

At that they put aside the serious business and settled down to an afternoon of drinking, then dinner and more drinking afterwards. When they were pretty much all comfortably numb, and Ellie had explained why she was staying with Chuck and Sarah, Carina half jokingly asked whether that meant Devon was actually a single man? Sarah went to jump down her throat for saying that but Ellie, with a thoughtful expression, held up her hand to stop her, saying that it would be an interesting test. Sarah just stared at her but Carina smiled wickedly, saying that Chuck had proved that a man who really loved someone would say no to anything was offered to them (multiple times, she added reproachfully to him), and he wasn't even with Sarah at that point, so nothing should happen with Ellie's husband, should it? Ellie smiled back at her and said "exactly", while the others looked between the two, more than a little concerned with what was going on. Chuck tried to talk Ellie out of the idea, pointing out how much trouble it would cause between them if Devon did anything with Carina, but Ellie's response was that that was the point, if he loved her nothing would happen with Carina, and if he didn't, then they could put the whole thing behind them and move on. With that she turned back to Carina and told her to feel free.

When Sarah locked eyes with Carina she realised that she was a lot more sober than she looked, and remembered that Carina had a lot more experience with men like this than she did, so she nodded, not happy but accepting that this would give Ellie an important confirmation one way or the other. With that, Carina emptied her glass then stood up and carefully adjusted her dress before walking to the door with her usual grace. She didn't switch to a drunken stagger until she opened the door and walked out. Chuck brought up the security feeds on the big screen and they watched as Carina staggered across the courtyard and knocked on the door. When Devon opened the door to see her wearing her little cocktail dress in a state of strategic disarray, he was obviously having a good time checking her out, paying more attention to what he was looking at than what she was slurring at him about the lightweights back there all being passed out because they couldn't handle a few drinks.

That was all it took for him to grin and pull her into the apartment, closing the door. Chuck switched to the internal camera feeds then, but it was obvious already that Devon would fail this test. Devon latched onto her as soon as she was inside and Carina's dress was on the floor before they were halfway to the couch, but he stumbled when the paralytic woman he was half carrying/half dragging to the couch suddenly propped just before they got to there. A few seconds after he turned to look at her he was rolling on the floor in agony after her knee crushed his testicles. Carina stood over him in heels and a thong as she told him in a cold and sober voice that no self respecting woman would want to have anything to do with a guy who would try to screw a woman who was too drunk to know what she was doing when his wife was right next door. With that she gracefully bent down to pick up her dress, slung it over her shoulder and sauntered back across the courtyard like that. When she got back into Chuck and Sarah's apartment she went straight to Ellie and hugged her, saying "I'm sorry Ellie". Ellie was in tears but she shook her head, saying "No, thanks for showing me what he really was". After that they started the serious drinking (once Sarah got Carina to put her dress back on).

The next morning, Ellie was in Casey's arms on one lounge while Carina was asleep on the other lounge. Chuck came down and started coffee and breakfast, working as quietly as possible so it was the smell of the coffee and food that actually woke the occupants of the lounge room. He did note with a smile the extra squeeze and kiss on the cheek that Ellie gave Casey before she stumbled over to the kitchen to take the coffee he held out to her. Once she'd had a few sips and was starting to feel human he pulled her into a hug and asked her if she was OK? She nodded, saying that it wasn't a nice thing to learn but it was something that she had to find out, then she looked up at him with a little smile saying that it was a good thing he didn't sleep with Carina, wasn't it, considering that she would be his sister in law soon? He just mock glared at her and said "nice try, but stop deflecting". Ellie shrugged, saying that she meant what she said, things hadn't been great for a while but she'd been settling for what she thought was safe and proper. She was putting up with the way he was because it felt like she had a good life, cute husband, good career, a future ahead of her, but there would always be something he did or said that aggravated her, it took him bringing Mommy and Daddy over to get her in line, and last night, to really open her eyes to what her life and future was really slated to be. She looked away and said that it was better for it to happen now before they had a kid who would be forced to have the sort of screwed up childhood they had. At that Chuck tightened his arms around her and said that while they went through a hell of a lot of shit, she'd raised him better than anyone else possibly could have, and when she had children he knew that she'd do just as good a job of raising them, if not better, with that he kissed her on the top of the head and went back to making breakfast.

Sarah had been standing a few feet away while Chuck and Ellie were talking and when he went back to the stove she stepped in to put her arms around Ellie without a word. Then Chuck had Ellie's breakfast ready and she sat down to eat while Sarah went to get the other two moving. She had to laugh at the shocked and reproachful look Casey gave her when he jumped up after she came up behind him and said softly in his ear "You know we're going to have to talk about you sleeping with my sister, AND my sister in law, don't you partner?" He opened his mouth to respond but when he saw the look in her eye he wisely shut it again without a word and headed to the kitchen. She got Carina going by telling her that while it would be appreciated if she had a shower to get the smell of the sleazebag off her before breakfast, her breakfast was waiting so she'd have to do it after. Carina opened one eye to glare at her and then stood to hug her with the endearment of "morning bitch", getting a grin and "morning skank" in response. When they got to the breakfast bar and Chuck hadn't started their breakfasts yet, she turned to Sarah and good naturedly called her a lying cow, getting another grin.

After breakfast, Ellie drew the blood samples etc from the two girls to get sent off for the DNA tests, while Chuck got on the computer to track down Jack. It wasn't easy, but even so it still only took him half an hour to locate their father, by which time Ellie had told Casey how to get the samples they needed, so he headed off to the airstrip where the Falcon was stored at the moment (because his first request when he was accepted into the group was to be able to fly the Falcon). Before he left, Chuck reminded him that the guy was their father, so he should probably make sure he only shot him with tranq guns, Casey grunted at him but said "OK".

Given that they had brought Carina in and vetted her, the original council automatically accepted their choice (they weren't going to have another issue with unfounded paranoia putting a block on people until it was nearly too late), so the others brought Carina up to speed on what the Council was and the resources that they had at their disposal. Carina couldn't believe that they had an almost hypersonic plane, so Chuck bought up pictures of the Falcon before saying "two, actually" and bringing up pictures of the Valkyrie, which had just been finished and they were sorting out now. The Valkyrie was a full scale version of the SonicStar, but with the same VTOL capabilities, titanium and carbon fibre construction and active camouflage/stealth technology that the Falcon had, so they could carry the entire team (and then some) in one trip. The Falcon had been enough when it was just Chuck and Sarah, but when the team expanded they needed more transport capacity. When Carina made cracks about the minivans that they had to drive (mil spec or not), Chuck grinned and asked whether she'd prefer this?, bringing up the pictures of a sleek little convertible. The new convertibles were only two seaters and had almost no cargo capacity, but they fitted the expected image better when it came to the type of functions and places that they'd often be going to, and they had pretty much the same capabilities that the minivans did. Carina's expression when she saw the new machine said that she liked it just fine.

When Casey returned that afternoon he handed the samples to Ellie and they were all sent off to one of the best labs for complete testing and comparison. Luckily Ellie had a friend there, and that (along with the payment they offered) ensured that the job was processed as top priority.

When they were talking on the second night (it was hard to believe what had happened in just over 24 hours), Carina brought up the fact that they needed to build up the team with trusted people, the others nodded at they looked at her, waiting for her to make her point, so she looked at Sarah and said "Zondra". Sarah stared at her and asked if she was crazy? Carina pushed on knowing that she would have to ram this down her throat. She pointed out that she'd tried to tell her when the CATs broke up that she believed that Zondra wasn't the mole, but Sarah was too stubborn to listen to her, then she locked gazes with Sarah and asked "Are you prepared to listen to me now, SIS?" Sarah still wasn't prepared to back down, saying that if they hadn't managed to prove anything back then, how could they prove it now? Carina's response was that they now had someone who had access to far more information than anyone ever had, and could put it together better, too, as she turned to look at Chuck. Sarah's and the others' gaze followed Carina's, and they realised that they probably could get to the bottom of it with Chuck. Sarah grudgingly agreed to go along with the idea if Chuck could find proof that Zondra wasn't the mole, though she added that Zondra probably still have issues with her, too. Carina ground her teeth and just asked again for confirmation that, if Chuck could find proof, they would go with this and Sarah nodded, at that Carina looked at Chuck and he nodded, leaving briefly to set up some search engines.

To keep Carina out of the system they arranged to have her immediately attached to Team Bartowski for an on-going mission they had, manipulating a few details to fit it into her DEA background and using her history with the team to justify it, she fitted into the team well and their string of successes just got better. In the meantime Chuck was running the investigation of the CATs and especially the incident that caused them to break up. It took him a few weeks of wading through all available records and cross checking with Sarah and Carina, but by then end of it he had a strong case that it was Amy, not Zondra, who was almost certainly the mole.

Unfortunately that put them up against a roadblock, how were they to get everyone together to make the truth come out? Sarah, Casey and Chuck knew the grin that Carina was beaming at them all too well and knew that they weren't likely to be happy with her suggestion, but also knew that they were going to hear it whether they wanted to or not. Knowing that she was going to come up with something totally left field still didn't prepare them for what she came out though, "We'll invite them to your engagement party"

Sarah looked at her and asked "Do you expect us to throw a fake engagement party just to get them to come to town?", and wasn't too happy to be answered "No, stupid, it will be your real engagement party." When both Sarah and Chuck looked at her like stunned mullet she went on "It's obvious that you two are going to be engaged and then married soon, so you may as well use this as the stepping off point" Sarah looked around at Ellie and Casey grinning and nodding and stuttered that they weren't anywhere near that point yet, and hadn't even discussed it, but Casey cut her off by asking her what she'd called Ellie that morning? She tried to say that that was a joke to wind him up but he shut her up by asking "Was it?" When she turned to Chuck, totally flustered, they shared one of their usual silent communications before he went down on his knee and asked if she would do him the very great honour of agreeing to marry him? She looked at him for about twenty seconds before smiling and saying "Yes!", and threw herself at him, leaving the other three grinning at each other.

It was a bit difficult when they advised their parents and the rest of the Council of the engagement and plan, but if they were expecting anyone to be surprised they would have been disappointed, because Auntie Diane's response of "About damned time!" pretty much summed up all of their reactions.

The most difficult part of the preparations was convincing Devon that the "nanny cam" footage from that night meant that there was absolutely no possibility of reconciliation with Ellie, and getting him to leave and run back to the East coast to his family with his tail between his legs, but he was convinced. Before he left he was visited by the General and the contingent of very large men who made up her protection detail to remind him in very specific detail what would happen if he ever said anything about the government affiliations of his soon to be ex-brother in law and his team to ANYONE. As she was leaving she turned back to advise him that, just in case he thought his father's political connections meant that he didn't have to worry about what she told him, the president already had the paperwork drawn up to put his entire family in a deep, dark hole if any of them ever spoke a word of this, and all it was waiting on was his signature. That wiped the smug look off his face instantly.

In the end it was surprisingly easy for Carina to get Zondra and Amy to come to the engagement party. Of course, the party itself was fairly small, some of Ellie's friends that Chuck knew, some from the Buy More and others from the mall that Chuck still talked to, a few individuals from the agencies, including the General and Roan, Casey and Alex etc. Chuck was upset that his mother couldn't make it, though of course he understood, and he WAS happy that both his father and Sarah's mother were there. There wasn't much time to talk to Zondra before or during the party, and they were wondering how they were going to bring things to a head, but the girls partied harder than the others and ended up crashing with Chuck and Sarah.

It was obvious the next morning that the mole from the CATs was still active, though, because Sarah lost her Porsche. Carina went to use Sarah's Porsche to do a grocery run for Chuck as he'd run out of the materials to make everyone's breakfasts (drawing a sneer from Zondra and Amy for being so domestic), but when she hit the remote on the way across the road, it blew sky high. Luckily Carina was far enough away to miss most of the blast, but she did get several large pieces of shrapnel embedded in her leg, which was enough to put her out of action for a bit. When they examined the remains of the car, they determined that the bomb had come from Augusto Gaez, strangely enough the very one that the CATs were going after when they had the incident that broke them up.

The bomb was the excuse they needed to pull the CATs into the investigation, but the old frictions were still there with Sarah and Zondra sniping at each other, which in turn created too many issues for them to talk and go over the information that Chuck had found. Chuck and Carina were trying to work out how to force them to sit down and talk when a tipoff came through about Gaez being in Rio and the team was sent to get him. They captured him and brought him back and then Sarah and Zondra finally had the direct argument that let them bring out all the evidence that had been found, and between them they agreed that the only one in the position to be the mole in every instance was Amy. Once they were on common ground, it wasn't too difficult to set Amy up to out herself on record, so that she and her boyfriend (Gaez) were arrested and put away, leaving Sarah and Zondra finally back in the space they'd been before that all cropped up.

Once that was sorted out they brought Zondra home for a "going away" dinner, and made her a proposition to join them. When Zondra agreed they also broke the news that was now confirmed, that Sarah and Carina were half sisters (that may have actually shocked her more than the incredible (but true) story about the Council). With Carina and Zondra now on board with the council, the case was made via/by the General that Team Bartowski needed to be expanded, due to the volume of missions and investigations that they were handling, and using the argument that history and the successful operation provided the level of trust they needed for such sensitive secrets, they had Carina and Zondra permanently re-assigned to Team Bartowski.

With all of them allocated together as a team, it was easy to argue that the best approach would be to expand their cover company to take on additional staff due to the workload that they had for Hunter Security, which meant that they had their office space remodelled again and expanded slightly to add extra workstations in another office. On top of that, with Ellie's divorce and Devon leaving being common knowledge, it was also logical for their two friends who had moved to LA to work with them to take over the now empty apartment. So, after the false starts, they ended up with the optimal solution almost being pushed onto them, but they couldn't fight against that, could they?

With her Porsche gone, Sarah needed a new car, and the obvious choice was one of the new convertibles. Carina and Zondra both went with convertibles as well (using slightly different panels so they didn't look identical) when they got set up. While the others were upgrading, Casey traded in his Crown Vic for a minivan like Chuck's (also sporting Hunter Security livery but with a less second hand appearance), while he passed the Crown Vic on to Alex to give her something safe (IE: armoured) to drive. Ellie also traded her car for another one of the minivans, though the standard scheme for hers was a nice dark green. This meant that all the team now had the superior Orion vehicles and were ready to deal with what may come at them.


	8. Stories

**Sorry if anyone was desperate enough to miss updates here, I went to a friend's place in the country and we got caught in the middle of a storm severe enough to get the district declared a disaster area. Spent the last week helping with the clean-up and waiting for flood waters to subside enough to open the roads, so, sorry?**

**Have to say up front that the content of this chapter is NOT pleasant, it's the origin stories of the six who now make up the team. IMO this would be the only way for them to completely trust each other, but given the back stories that you've already seen you should know that this won't be nice.**

**Usual disclaimer for the land of litigation, no rights to any characters etc not created here.**

With Carina and Zondra fully part of the team now, they started stumbling up against the secrets that they all kept about themselves, which of course raised trust issues. The six of them were sitting in the lounge room of Chuck and Sarah's apartment (with all external monitoring blocked), and Chuck decided to bring up the elephant in the room. Chuck pointed out that he had access to everyone's stories (or most of them at least) via the Intersect, but the rest of them were restricted to what each of them chose to share. He waved his hand around the group as he pointed out that this was obviously causing problems for them, and asked what everyone felt about sharing their real stories with each other? Sarah stepped in at that point to state that Chuck hadn't shared any details about what he knew about any of them, and Casey and Ellie backed her up on that point. They all looked at each other as they considered the frightening suggestion in front of them (as they all had shocking and terrible things in their past), but after going over it in their heads, and looking at the people there, they all nodded and stated that they'd do it. Then the next question came up, who was going to go first.

After everyone looked at each other for a minute or so, Casey drew a breath and spoke up. "I'll go first, some of you already know the gritty parts, and my story doesn't effect anyone else here." At that Sarah, Carina, Chuck and Ellie looked at each other, as they hadn't considered that angle, but they all nodded to each other, agreeing to speak of their shared secrets as well as personal secrets, with that Casey went on. "For a start, my real name is Alexander John Coburn, John Casey isn't a cover name, it's a new identity they made me take on when they made me fake my own death to join the NSA."

"Alex Coburn (well, my mom called be Johnny Boy because I was the third generation Alex Coburn after my father and grandfather) was your typical football jock in high school, star quarterback, cheerleaders, muscle cars, the whole nine yards, you know? Young, dumb and full of cum."

"When high school finished there was nothing left in the little southern town I came from for Johnny Boy Coburn, I wasn't goin' to work for the mill or on the farm, so I signed up with the Marines to see the world, meet interesting people and kill them, as the saying went. The Marines were just an extension of high school for me, no-one could keep up with me, I never saw a firearm I couldn't master like that (snapping his fingers), I was the ace sniper for my company and Johnny Boy was livin' large."

"That ride finished in 1989 when I tried to move onwards and upwards to Special Operations Command, and they told me that I didn't qualify. I just didn't know how to handle that, I was about to call Kathleen (my fiancé) to tell her that I'd washed out and was coming home, when a Colonel Keller stopped me and offered me a chance to join a covert black ops team for the NSA. I should have had the sense to look at it properly by my pride had just taken a hit because I'd been told that I wasn't good enough and I was going home, so I was ready to take any chance to show what I could do (come to think of it, the officer who told me I didn't make the grade was probably working with Colonel Keller and set me up to take the offer). Anyway, Colonel Keller convinced me that Alex Coburn had to die, and I had to start over as John Casey, so I did it, I put my fiancé through all the heartache my "death" and funeral without telling her what was going to happen."

"Of course what I didn't know (because Keller took the phone off me and hung up before she could tell me) was that Kathleen was pregnant when I lied to her and faked my death, I only found out this year that I have a daughter." (At that point Carina jumped in to ask whether she'd heard him right, John Casey had a daughter? Sarah interjected to stop her before she baited him too much, saying that Alex was pretty, smart, and tough, she seemed to combine the best parts of both Casey and her mother. Carina let it drop, but sat there grinning as she shook her head at him in disbelief.) Casey went on to explain that Keller had blackmailed him into committing treason in an attempt to save Kathleen's life, and it was only after they saved her and took down Keller and his group that they found out about Alex. After that Casey went back to outline the operations that he'd done for the NSA and the government for the past twenty years, smirking at Chuck as he wound up with the statement that over a quarter century of being a top soldier, operative and assassin were all undermined now, just because he'd been assigned to a pain in the arse with a conscience and he'd managed to infect everyone around him with that conscience.

They were quiet for a while when Casey finished, a few of them reaching out to squeeze his arm in a gesture of thanks for kicking things off, and for sharing, then Zondra spoke up, saying that she may as well go next, as her story didn't involve anyone else, either. Like Casey she drew a breath and then started in.

"I started out as Mercedes Sonia Trapoldi, my father was a high level member of the Rissoli crime family, he was brilliant at organising and managing deals for the family but he was weak, and he was a coward" (At that she looked at Chuck and said that when she met him she thought that he was just like her father, but said that she knew better now, and apologised before continuing with her story.) "My mother was Sondra Zambutti and she was wonderful, beautiful, strong, kind hearted, she lit up the room when she entered and just made everything alright. I took after my mother in looks and everything else so we were always invited to the parties with the heads of the family from when I was a little girl because they wanted us around to brighten up the place, that was how I caught the eye of the heir apparent of the Rissoli family when I was eighteen. When he started pressuring me to go on a date with him I refused, but my father was whining at me that our family would be ruined if I wasn't nice to him because he was so important. Eventually I gave in to shut my father up, thinking that I could put up with him crowing about himself through dinner and then it would be over and done with, silly girl!"

"When I got there, it wasn't to go out to dinner at all, I was taken to his suite and he basically told me to get my clothes off and get into bed. I refused and fought him, so he called his goons in to work me over until I couldn't fight any more, then he had his fun." Zondra was quiet as she relived the experience and then put her game face on and continued. "The actual sex was forgettable, but the things he used in me ripped me up pretty badly. When he demanded that I tell him how great he was I laughed at him and told him he was pathetic, and that's when he went crazy, bashing me with anything he could get his hands on. His goons stopped him before he killed me, because part of their job was to control him, but then they just took me back and dumped me on our doorstep, more dead than alive."

"My father was terrified that if I went to a hospital the authorities would be involved and the family would come after us (or more to the point, come after him), so he tried to insist that we didn't tell anyone about what happened and they get one of the family's doctors in to patch me up. My mother just told him to get out of the way and took me to the hospital (in a cab because he stopped her using the limo) to get me the proper treatment and contacted the feds directly when we were there. I never managed to prove it, but I'm sure my father told the family that my mother had gone to the feds, because she was murdered when she got home from the hospital."

"The feds protected me in the hospital (in hope that they'd get material to use against the family I guess), and when I could talk I made my own deal with them. I told them that I'd give them what they needed to take the family down, but only if I was part of the operation. Of course they refused at first but I was my mother's daughter and wouldn't budge until they agreed."

"It took some time, I had to be patched up and given a new face because of the damage that the guy did to me. Because I planned to be in it until the family, and my father, were taken down, as part of the clean up operation I had my face and other things changed enough to prevent me being recognised. Losing my mother's features hurt, but it had to be done to get revenge for her, so I took her name, with the zee from her surname, as my new name, so that I would always have something of her with me, I came up with Rizzo to go with it, and also to remind me of where I came from." Zondra sat for a while as she thought about this, then gathered herself again and continued. "They couldn't do anything about the damage inside, but they did a pretty good job of cleaning things up outside (everyone nodded, especially Sarah and Carina, who knew how flawless her body was under her clothes), and I recovered enough to start getting into shape and get to work inside of two months. At first I was giving them information and going over what they got out, but that wasn't a very effective process, so as soon as the operation scars had faded enough I started working directly on the operations to identify the players and direct the actions on the ground. Within six months the Rissoli family was taken down, and all the major players were in prison or dead. They kept me out of the operation to take my father, so he's in prison, but I managed to get the one who messed me up, he won't be hurting anyone any more."

"I had planned on getting out and starting a new life once the Rissoli family and my father were taken down, but one of my superiors sat me down and talked to me about all the good I could do, and how many people I could save if I stayed and did what I did best, so that's what I did. Over the next four or five years I worked on bringing down crime families around the world and I was doing a pretty good job of it, then I got dragged into the CAT Squad with these two (waving her hand at Sarah and Carina), and I guess you know most of that story. When the CAT Squad broke up I went back to the organised crime task forces, and that's where I've been up until now."

When she stopped talking, Sarah got up and went to her, they sat and held each other for a while as they cried out what had happened to Zondra, and them. When everyone was ready to continue Ellie spoke up, saying that it was her turn, her story shocked the others, and even Chuck, with the parts that he hadn't known about.

"Well my name has always been Eleanor Faye Bartowski, OK, it was Woodcomb for a while but that's over and done with now. My parents are Stephen and Mary Bartowski, but you may know them better as Orion and Frost (Carina and Zondra looked at each other, hell yes they knew those names), you all know my baby brother Chuck. Our family was always a little off, Dad was brilliant but rather eccentric, pretty much your stereotype mad scientist but nice, and Mom was always secretive, coming back upset from phone calls she'd get and going off for days or even weeks at a time. It makes sense now, but we didn't know that she was a spy then. When Chuck was nine and I was twelve, nearly thirteen, we woke up one morning and Mom was gone, Dad seemed to know something but he wouldn't tell us what was going on. For the first week or two it didn't seem that different from the other times Mom went away, but as time went on Dad started getting frantic, and more erratic than he normally was. I'd always been the one who had to make sure that Chuck was doing his homework, and getting to school on time, and wearing clean underwear (this said with a grin in Chuck's direction), so things weren't that much different, but Dad retracted into himself and hardly came out of his workroom when he was home. The longer things went without Mom coming home, the more we were asking Dad what happened but he wouldn't tell us anything."

"About a year? (she looked at Chuck and he nodded) after Mom left, Dad started acting really crazy, he was even more of a recluse and nothing he said made any sense any more, it was all I could do to get him to sign the withdrawals and paperwork so I could pay the bills and keep everything working." (The others looked at each other, thinking about the fact that she was still thirteen when she was doing this). "Anyway, Dad just got worse over the next eighteen to twenty months, and then one day we woke up and he was gone too. We still had a few thousand dollars in the bank accounts and some of the neighbours tried to look out for us, but it was hard." (At that her voice caught and she looked down, Sarah stood again and crossed to where she sat, putting her arms around her. When Ellie had recovered a little she continued.) "While we had some money, I knew that it couldn't last, so I started working after school to try and bring enough in to maintain the life we had, such as it was, Chuck did what he could to help out as well, but at twelve his options were pretty limited. All the time we were doing this, our neighbours were running interference to keep the authorities, and in particular Social Services, from finding out that we were two minors living alone without any parents."

"I was out most nights doing waitress jobs and the like, getting pawed by the truckers and other dirty old men who'd come in late at night, and as the busses didn't run much at night, I usually had to accept lifts to get home after midnight. One night when I was getting a lift home the guy pulled into an abandoned lot and told me that as he was being nice to me, I was going to be nice to him." (The others stared at her in horror, as it was obvious where this was going.) "I tried to fight him off but he was too strong, and he pulled out a knife, held it to my face and told me that he'd cut me if I didn't stop fighting him. When he was done he took me home and told me that he knew where I lived, so if I said anything to anyone he'd come back and get me and my family." Ellie had to take a moment as the memories of that night came back to her, but then she continued. "I knew that it wouldn't stop there, so I started carrying a knife in my bag, and sure enough a few days later he told me he was giving me a lift home again. When we were out in the car park and away from everyone else I tried to talk him out of it, he just grabbed me and started dragging me to his car asking what part of "I know where you live" didn't I understand but this time I was ready, and I stabbed him. I don't know how many times I stabbed him but in the end there was blood everywhere and he was just laying there, dead, I sat and cried for a few minutes, then opened up the trunk of his car and managed to haul him into it with a bit of a struggle. I drove down to the river and pushed him in, after taking any form of identification I could find off of him. After that I drove home, but I parked the car about a block away, then I went in and spent about an hour in the shower, much like I had after that first night." (Chuck had crossed to kneel in front of her with his arms around her when she first started telling this part of the story, not saying anything, just crying with her.) "I kept the car and any money or anything else of use I found on him and in his apartment when I cleaned it out to make it look like he'd just left, but I made sure that all of his identification and other things were disposed of well away from anywhere Chuck or I were associated with. I also swapped the plates for the ones on an abandoned car I'd seen on the way home from work. The car gave me the means to get to and from work without having to trust anyone else, but I always parked it a block or so away from home or where I was working (not that diner, I quit there a couple of days after that night)."

"So I was working a couple of jobs after school while trying to maintain my grades and help Chuck (pausing to run her fingers through his hair on the head in her lap) make something of himself, but it wasn't enough, what Chuck and I could make didn't cover the bills, and the money we had in the accounts was running out. When I managed to get a scholarship to UCLA medical school, with the help of one of our neighbours we sold the house and moved into a little off-campus apartment near the university. Chuck had to change schools to go there, and we still worked jobs after school to make the money last, but it was easier. When I met Devon I thought that things were turning for the better, but obviously I was wrong on that point. Anyway that's pretty much my story, I'm here now, I'm on the books as an NSA analyst and I'm helping the team on both NSA and Council operations."

Things were quiet for a while as they tried to absorb Ellie's story, she was the one who was supposed to have the good life among them, but her story was terrible. The four experienced spies had also noted the way that an inexperienced and traumatised sixteen year old girl had efficiently cleaned up the evidence after being put in the position of having to kill the man who had raped her, to stop him doing it again, they wondered whether that came from the instincts of her legendary spy mother, or the brilliant logic she inherited from her genius father? Chuck wiped his eyes as he climbed up off the floor to sit beside Ellie, holding her hand and said that he may as well tell his story now. Given that Ellie had covered the early years already, he skipped over much of them, only filling in the parts that Ellie didn't know.

"You all know me, Charles Irving Bartowski, when Mom left, I was sure that it was my fault, because I'd broken her bracelet the day before, Ellie spent a lot of time trying to convince me that it wasn't my fault but that's a hard sell to a little kid. About nine months after Mom left I tried to talk to Dad one time he came out of his workroom but he waved me aside and ran off to get something, I was angry and when I saw that the door to his workroom was open, I decided to go in and see what was more important than us. It was really cool in there, computers and computer screens all over the place, and there was a setup at the other end of the room with piles of computer screens around it that had an "Activate?" prompt on the screen, so to get back at him I hit enter. Immediately images started flashing on all the screens, what I didn't know at the time, of course, was that it was an Intersect upload and it affected me the same way the others did, it just locked up my brain for several minutes and when I came out of it my Dad was frantic, he was sure that my brain was burnt out because he hadn't locked the room. When he worked out that I was OK he was so relieved that he babbled for ten minutes, but unfortunately he decided that if it was safe for me, it should be safe for him, too, and because he was desperate to find our Mom and bring her home..." (At this point he realised that he needed to fill in another part of the story for this to make sense, so he put HIS story aside for a bit to do so.)

"OK, that's something you need to know here, as Ellie said, our Mom is Frost, and Dad is Orion, Dad was working on the beginnings of the Intersect project from before I was born, and Dad and his team had come up with the means to successfully imprint a different personality onto a person using the Intersect technology. When I was nearly nine, Graham convinced, or more to the point ordered, them to imprint a personality they had developed onto someone to go into deep cover to infiltrate and get control of the Russian arms trade, it was only supposed to be for a few months and Dad worked on the programs with his team until they were sure it was safe, and that they could get it out of his head when it was done. When he was imprinted with Agent X (as they referred to the imprinted persona), though, something went very wrong, the programs were corrupted somehow and he wasn't what he was meant to be, he was a violent psychopath. My parents wanted to abort the program then and there to get the host back, but Graham overruled them, saying that it was working fine and that they could get him out when it was finished, reminding them that they'd hard coded an expiry date into the program after 6 months, so Frost could go in and extract him then if they didn't get their results before then. Anyway, Mom went in a bit before the six months were up but she found that there was another problem, the mild attraction for her that had been programmed into Agent X (to make it easier to get access to him to get him out) had been changed into a total obsession with her, so much so that he'd hardly let her leave his sight. Still, they all still thought that when the six months were up, Agent X would disappear, she'd extract the host and they'd back home, safe, in no time. So much for that idea, six months came and went without the program terminating, and when Mom tried to use the manual triggers to cause it to terminate, none of them worked. Just as they decided that she had to abort and get out, someone in the CIA "leaked" the information that she was a CIA agent and she was captured. The only way that she could save herself was to pretend that she'd turned and wanted to stay with him, of course some of his bright and eager minions ran a thorough investigation on her, so that if she tried to leave she would be tracked down AND they knew where Stephen, Charles and Eleanor Bartowski lived (though not who they were, beyond people important to her), so she'd been stuck there with Alexei Volkoff for twenty years now" (Carina and Zondra jumped when they heard that name, as that was another name they knew quite well, neither of them had ever heard anything good in relation to it though.)"

"Anyway, Dad thought that if the Intersect was safe for me, it should be safe for him too so after a few months of testing he uploaded the Intersect in an attempt to finish the Intersect project quicker and leave him free to chase after Mom (as he hadn't believed Graham when he told him that she had been killed by Volkoff when he discovered that she was CIA). As soon as he uploaded it, he knew that he was wrong about it being safe for him, but it was too late then, so he spent the next 18 – 20 months trying to find a fix for it, all the while fighting the way it was tearing his brain apart. After doing that for over a year and a half with no results, he decided that his children would be better off cursing an absent father than having to deal with a drooling vegetable, so he left. In his more lucid moments (they came and went) he tried to find a fix for the Intersect problems, but the best he could come up with was a device that he called the governor, which appeared to lock him into lucid mode (such as it was) and stopped, or at least slowed, the degeneration from the Intersect. Dad considered coming back to us at that point, but apparently he'd had a number of close calls with government and other groups coming after him, so as he didn't want to lead them to us he decided that we'd be better off if he stayed away."

"As Ellie said, we had some of the neighbours helping us but it was hard, mainly on her, she was finishing school to make something of herself, working two jobs after school to pay the bills" (his voice caught at that point as he remembered what she'd just told them) "and raising a bratty brother by herself, all before she turned sixteen, she was both a saint and a super woman" (everyone nodded at that, this nice doctor had handled more than most could without showing any of it) "When Ellie finished high school and got the scholarship to UCLA Medical, we sold the house and got the little apartment near the university. As I could get jobs then, between us we brought in what she'd been getting before working all night (squeezing her hand), so we both had more time to study and have a bit of a life, Ellie got Devon after she'd settled down and I, well I had girlfriends too." (At this point Sarah thought that they desperately needed a bit of levity, so she asked for a show of hands from those who had been tarts through high school and university. Chuck glared at her, then reluctantly raised his hand, and after a bit Casey surprised them by raising his as well. Ellie and the other girls looked at them, and at the conspicuous lack of hands from any of the girls, but tabled that discussion for later.)

"With Ellie's help, I hunkered down and worked hard enough to get the scores I needed to get a scholarship to Stanford, neither of us wanted to leave the other, but it was the best opportunity that I could hope for, and I thought that Ellie should to be able to go after the things she wanted without having to worry about me all the time. When I moved up to San Francisco for Stanford, Ellie stayed in the apartment and things went along quietly for a while, I started working at Buy More at nights and weekends to top up our accounts, I met Bryce and joined the fraternity with him, then I started a serious relationship with Jill." (Each time he mentioned one of these names, Sarah grimaced, and after Jill was named, Ellie stood up and moved to the other side of Chuck so that he could hold Sarah's hand.)

"Anyway, I was trying my best to make something of myself at Stanford, and I was also doing something on the side, I made quite a name for myself as a hacker called The Piranha, I was mainly hacking into government systems and exposing the disgusting things that they were doing, but I was taking money off dodgy people sometimes too, and using that to build up the funds that Ellie and I had to support us." (Ellie turned to him at that, saying that she thought he was gambling and putting the money in the account when he had a big win, then she hit him for taking the risk of stealing money off criminals.) "As I was getting to the end of university, I was topping all of my courses and thought that I had it pretty good, room mates with my best friend, getting ready to propose to my beautiful girlfriend when we graduated (squeezing Sarah's hand when he said this), Ellie was doing well at UCLA Medical and was on track for the career she wanted, she'd bought the place here (with the money we had in the accounts) and had Devon, everything was coming up roses for us. Then I got called into the Dean's office to be advised that I was being expelled for cheating, and selling exam papers, finding that my accuser was my best friend and room mate floored me. I packed everything I had into my car and went back to Ellie with my tail between my legs. I was having trouble getting Jill on the phone to explain to her that what was being said about me wasn't true, so I drove back up the next weekend to try and see her face to face, only to be told that she'd already moved on to Bryce Fukn Larkin. I went by the Buy More before I left to tell them that I was quitting because I was moving back to Los Angeles, but they had heard the stories and understood, and the manager gave me a reference and letter of recommendation in case I needed work back in LA. I thanked him and came home, sat around doing nothing for a month or so and then decided that I had to do something so I took the letters and went to get a job at the Buy More down here."

"Fast forward to my 26th birthday, I'm hiding out in my room because Ellie, as usual, has stocked the party with eligible (in her opinion) women to get me out of my rut (which was very comfortable after five years, thank you very much), and I get an email from my bestie, Bryce Larkin. Like a complete idiot I open the email, hoping to get an explanation for everything he did to me, only to get uploaded with the latest version of the Intersect and all the government's secrets. The next day an angel walks into my life (squeezing Sarah's hand again), and the day after that the Hound of the Baskervilles (grinning at Casey) arrives, and the next phase of my life started."

"I don't know how I survived the first couple of years in this business, I know I wouldn't have if it wasn't for these two (Sarah interjected with "you certainly gave me plenty of scares!" and Casey grunted his agreement), but with the Intersect we were getting plenty of successes, enough to make the CIA and NSA overlook my unusual approach to things. Bryce and Jill both came back into out lives and tried to get us to believe that they had the best intentions to get what they wanted from us, and I must admit that they had me fooled for a while, but we got past them. I was trying to win someone who was out of my league and screwing things up right, left and centre (another agreeing grunt came from Casey), then I managed to do what the NSA and CIA couldn't, I found my father, or at least found him on-line, it took Sarah to find him in the real world. We got him back, then he gave himself up to Fulcrum to save me, and we tracked him down again. Sarah and I were accused of treason and locked up, then we escaped and went back to save him and Casey helped, then cleared Sarah's name to get the charges dropped. My father suppressed the first Intersect when we found him and when we got back I turned down the analyst job they offered me so I was out, and Sarah was going off to work with Bryce again. Anyway, Ted Roark and his boys crashed Ellie's wedding and there was a battle where the reception was supposed to be so the wedding was destroyed, we used the severance check I got from the NSA to pay for the wedding Ellie wanted, but at the reception my father came up to say that Bryce had just left to go and upload the Intersect 2.0 with an agent who was supposed to be dead so the three of us went to save him. Sarah and Casey got into a fire fight with the baddies and I found a way to get into the Intersect room, to find that Bryce had been shot and was dieing. He gave me the device to wipe out the Intersect image so that the baddies couldn't get it before he died, but what Sarah said about being a hero was in my head and I uploaded the Intersect before I wiped out the systems."

"After that, the NSA was excited about me having the Intersect, and so was I, but Sarah wasn't because she was afraid what this life would do to me, so she made a deal with me to run away together, she was going to meet me in Prague in 3 weeks once she had time to set things up and we'd disappear together." (Carina and Zondra were just staring at Sarah at this point, as they knew very well what she'd proposed and was prepared to give up entailed. Sarah just smiled briefly, knowing what their reactions would be to what Chuck was about to tell them) "When I got to the training facility in Prague that they'd set up for me, I was hijacked and taken to a secret meeting with, I was to find, General Diane Beckman and my parents. They spent the night showing me evidence of what we were up against and why they needed me to get the most out of this training if we were to have a chance against them, then they convinced me that I couldn't tell Sarah the truth about why I was turning her down because we were being watched, and her devastation had to be convincing." (Carina and Zondra looked at her again and Sarah nodded, motioning them to hear him out) "It was the hardest thing I ever did but because the stakes were so high I went through with it, and then spent the next six months wondering whether Sarah could ever forgive me and give me another chance. While I was there I decided that if our life together was going to be destroyed over this, it wasn't going to be in vain, so I went all out every day that I was there, while fudging enough results to convince them (with the assistance of a number of key people in the training program) that I was actually an erratic failure. When they decided that I couldn't get much more out of it and pulled the plug, I came back to find out whether I had destroyed the only truly good thing in my life."

"When I got back, the General called Sarah into a briefing, and the entire Council came as well, the General, my parents, Sarah's mother, Bryan Mills and Roan Montgomery. It wasn't quite as long as my first meeting as Sarah is a quicker study than me and we left out all the Bartowski family history that they used to get me on board, but in the end Sarah accepted the importance of what they'd made me do, and the fact that they pretty much had to force me to do it, and she accepted me back. Since then we've been running the Council's missions in the background while the team has been officially operating under the NSA umbrella, we had a nasty period with a ring mole that Sarah had to put up with, Casey had his incidents as he mentioned and we brought down the Ring, which pretty much brings us up to now."

Carina and Zondra stared at Chuck, they'd heard parts of this before but if they weren't here in front of the people that they trusted most in the world, they wouldn't be able to believe what they'd heard. At that point, Sarah said that it was probably her turn to speak.

"I was born Samantha Lisa Burdon, I was given my mother's name as my parents were never married. My mother is Emma Burdon, you met her at our engagement party and you will be dealing with her in the Council if you haven't done so already. My father, or rather our father (looking at Carina) is best known to most of you as Jack Burton, a conman and a scumbag, he has destroyed our lives and the lives of our mothers through his selfish actions, and if I never have anything to do with him again it will be too soon. When I was a little girl, Mom worked with my father on his cons, doing all the planning and background work to ensure that they could be safe and successful, when I was three (as I found out quite recently), he decided to improvise (again) in a con so it went south and he bailed without telling her what happened, so she was left holding the bag and was caught. The CIA came in and were quite impressed with what they saw in regard to what my Mom had done for the con, so they blackmailed her with a "deal" to make her work for them as an analyst if she ever wanted to see me again. Like Chuck's Mom, she'd get calls that upset her and she'd have to leave for days or weeks at a time, and of course part of the "deal" was that she wasn't allowed to tell anyone what she was doing, so all I could see was that my Mommy kept leaving me and wouldn't tell me why she was doing it. My father was also angry about what she was doing, because another part of the "deal" was that she couldn't work with him on his cons AT ALL, so he was just fuddling along with small time cons without any proper planning, which of course meant that he was hardly pulling anything compared to what they were pulling when Mommy was planning them. He started taking me along as a prop whenever Mommy had to go away and spent a lot of time playing me about what she was doing and how she obviously didn't care about me, or us, any more."

"That kept on until the time when I was seven when he just told me that we weren't going back. He let me call my Grandma sometimes and she gave me a way to contact Mommy, so I managed to keep in contact with her sporadically, if I lost contact with her I had to go back to Grandma to get a new contact for her. When Grandma died, Mom took the risk and stayed where she was until I contacted her (she was still on the run from the CIA), so that we could set up an on-going plan to keep some form of contact as we both moved about. I was working with my father for almost ten years after he took me away from my mother, by the time I was ten I'd taken over the role that my mother had, planning and organising the cons. We argued all the time about what he was doing, and when I could I pushed him away from the family cons and towards corporate cons where we could pull more money without hurting innocent people as much, but of course he kept improvising because he was sure that he could pull more than I was planning on, so we often had to grab what we could and run without making anything. Several times when he decided to change things on the fly, we ended up getting caught and he'd be arrested, he'd go away for a while and I'd be put into foster care. When I was younger the worst that happened was bullying, but as I got older that progressed to being fondled and groped by creepy foster "fathers" and foster "brothers", and a few attempted rapes, I always managed to grab something to hit them with and run away, then I'd find out where Dad was and somehow manage to get over there and live until he got out. Anyway, when I was seventeen my father was arrested again, at Langston Graham's instigation as I later found out, and Graham offered me a "deal" too, if I came to work for him and did what he said he'd have me trained to be the best in the business and my father would be protected from the people that he'd crossed. Of course, the implication was that if I didn't do everything he told me to, my father was as good as dead, and while I wasn't happy with my father a lot of the time I still loved him enough to protect him, so I agreed."

"When I finished highschool I went to the Farm to be turned from an ugly duckling into a swan (my father had always made me look dorky and stupid so I didn't attract attention on the cons), and a killing machine. Whenever I didn't do what the bastards he assigned to mould me into the weapon he wanted told me to, he'd come out with more threats about what would happen to my father, that was the only way he got me to go through with the "special" training." (She stopped and looked at Carina, who looked stricken but nodded, and at Chuck who squeezed her hand and kissed her on the head, indicating that this was her choice.) "The "special" training was an extension of the seduction school training, very few were made to go through that, I doubt that he could have found the leverage to force most to do it, but it was a very intensive and hands on training that included what seemed to be pretty much every sexual act known, I couldn't believe how bad most of them were. I was a virgin when I went in there, I hadn't had a boyfriend, not even a real kiss, but before I turned eighteen I'd had more done to me than most women experience in their lifetimes." (She stopped at that point and Chuck held her as she sobbed. From the way that Carina grabbed his hand and was crushing it, Casey was certain that he knew someone else who had gone through it, as well. After a while Sarah had composed herself enough to continue.) "After the Farm they started sending me out on missions, even when I was at Harvard and on the Secret Service detail. At first the intent seemed to be to make me do what they were "training" me for, but pretty soon I snapped and just started wiping out the bastards that I was sent to deal with as soon as they started climbing all over me. I'm not sure whether that was Graham's plan or not, but if he wanted a killing machine he got one. As Zondra said, you guys know about the CATs, after that I was partnered with Bryce Larkin until the final betrayal when I was left for dead in the Ukraine and only got out due to a contact that an analyst slipped me, then there was a mission in Budapest where I was sent in to recover a baby that was the key to a fortune that my crooked handler wanted to get his hands on for his retirement fund, that baby is now living with my mother as my little sister, Molly. Finally I was sent to clean up Bryce's mess and met the most infuriating man I've ever met, who I hope to spend the rest of my life with." With that she threw her arms around Chuck's neck and kissed him. Carina smiled wanly at her sister and said that that left her story.

"I was born as Carina Anden, my father left before I was born, which may be a good thing as I now have a pretty amazing sister. When I was a little girl my mother was wonderful, but as I grew she became more resentful and the never ending stream of boyfriends got worse as the years went by. By the time I was ten I was spending most of my time at home dodging them or hiding from them, and when I was twelve the boyfriend of the time caught me and did what he wanted to me. I don't know whether I killed him when I hit him in the head with the iron, I really hope I did, but my mother hurt me more when she called me a whore for stealing him away from her, so I slapped her down, got my clothes and left. At first I went to my Aunt, but my mother called her and told her to tell me that she'd have me put away for what I did, so I just ran. My teenage years were a little like Sarah's, so maybe Daddy did put his stamp on us to some degree, I stole, lifted dirty old men's wallets and cleaned them out, ran cons, broke into buildings and safes, talked my way into parties and made off with whatever was valuable in the house, whatever I needed to live, and I did live fairly well. I got caught a few times over that time and was worked over physically or sexually, spent time in hospital due to both. When I was seventeen my luck ran out, I worked a party to get access to a big mansion up in the hills but I was caught by a trust fund jock and his frat buddies when I was going through the house getting what valuables I could. I tried to fight them but they were Casey's size and I didn't have any hope of getting away. They took turns for hours until I managed to grab a corkscrew and deal with them. I must have been in a bad way because I didn't even think about security cameras until some guys in suits turned up to grab me and haul me away."

"When I was hauled into a meeting room with Langston Graham I knew that I was in trouble, the evil about the man was palpable, and it wasn't just his oily voice. He went over the events back to when I almost killed my mother's boyfriend, things that I was sure no-one knew about, then he showed me the video of me taking out those bastards with the corkscrew, he had the video of what they'd been doing to me as well, but he didn't care about that, then he took me on a road trip to the prison. The sick bastard seemed to be getting off on what he was telling me about what happened to the women in there and how long they would last before they succumbed to the abuses they received, or killed themselves, and the look in the women's eyes gave me nightmares for ages, so when he gave me a choice of being sent there, or coming to work for him, well it wasn't really a choice, I would have done anything to stay away from that place."

"I knew people like him well enough to know that I'd never escape his plans for me, and that I'd have to do well enough to please him if I wanted to avoid what he had hanging over my head, so I went all out through most of the training, I defy anyone to make an effort in the "special" training except for the sick bastards he picked to put us through it, it was all we could do was suffer through it. My problem was that I couldn't really shine in the other areas, because there was someone else there who was superhuman, we'd hear every day about some new record she'd set or how she'd obliterated all the best trainers in whatever area she was in, if I was measured against her I was fukd, all I could hope for was the fact that I was way ahead of just about everyone else would be enough to keep me out of THAT place. Of course, when she wasn't showing me and the rest of the mere mortals up, Sarah was wonderful, being able to talk to her was the only thing that got me through the farm."

"When I left the farm, I thought that I'd gotten a break as Graham had traded (or at least loaned) me to the DEA, I thought that I may be able to get away with using my other (quite considerable I must say) skills for the missions but as soon as I tried that I got a call from Graham to tell me that the buddy that he'd loaned me to was complaining that I wasn't doing what I'd been told to. The menace in his voice when he asked whether I'd forgotten what would happen unless I upheld the conditions of my "employment" was overpowering so I just agreed and went back to being the sexbot that they expected me to be. From that time, I successfully blocked out everything when I was on a mission, but when I was alone it all came back to me, so I usually tried to make sure that I wasn't alone, otherwise I'd start wanting to end it. About the only thing that kept the demons at bay for any length of time was when Sarah called or I spent time with her, and the time when we were in the CATs and sharing an apartment with her was pretty much the happiest time I can remember. After the CATs, things went back to what they'd been before, I could work around some of the sex requirements but not most, and for a while I didn't even have Sarah to talk to, so I hit a pretty low point, but now I've been pulled out of that and I have a family, so maybe life is worth living after all?"

Sarah went to Carina at that point, with Chuck following close behind, then Ellie, Zondra, and even Casey pulled her in for a hug.

Afterwards they stood there, looking at each other and feeling as though they'd all been put through the wringer, but that it had been cathartic. Chuck cleared the air by asking whether they knew enough about each other to trust now? Everyone immediately nodded, no-one feeling the need to, or perhaps the ability to, speak at that moment, and they all headed off to bed.


	9. Training Days

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters not created here.**

After they'd aired the skeletons in their closets with each other, the team was a lot closer and more comfortable as a whole, but there were shreds of stubborn pride that were getting in the way, like the training issue, Carina and Zondra couldn't believe that the others spent at least three to five hours every day working on their physical condition and skills. With what little attention they'd paid to the issue, they'd just put it down Sarah and Casey helping Chuck get his sister up to scratch, because she only started about three months ago, so she probably had at least a year or more in front of her before she was anywhere near operational levels, but as much as they liked Ellie, they weren't about to go back to boot camp for her. Carina's "Yeah, right!" and Zondra's "Good luck with that!" when Sarah broached the subject of them joining in made their position quite clear, what wasn't so easily understandable, though, was the level of disappointment in them that Sarah showed when she got those responses from them.

On the odd occasion that they were up early enough, Carina or Zondra would watch the other four take off on their early morning runs, and they had to admit that they looked good, seeing them doing isometric/isotonic exercises, yoga, tai chi or shaolin training at intervals throughout the day was more common (especially for Chuck, as he said it helped him think through problems if he got his brain out of gear). The sparring sessions, bag work and weight training in Castle were just displays that were showing a fraction of their abilities, part of the cover as it were, but it was actually these fake sessions that started to get the point through to Carina and Zondra that they were obviously missing something. They both knew all too well that Sarah had always been on a whole 'nother level to them in her skill sets and capabilities, but back in their CATs days (and other times they'd worked with her) they'd managed to give her a workout when they got on the mat, now, it'd be hardly started before it was over.

It was the nice civilian doctor who had just started training that really did their heads in, though. At the start they kept refusing to get on the mat with Ellie, because they were afraid of hurting her, but when they finally gave in and stepped in to mix up the sessions she was having with her brother, Casey and Sarah they got quite the shock, because this rank amateur was giving them a serious workout, and managed to put both of them on their arses more than once. When they demanded to know what the hell was going on they got another rather disappointed look from Sarah as she signed to them that they would discuss this at home where they could control who was listening in. She later casually suggested dinner at their place that night, as the next morning was relatively open, so they could all afford to have a late night.

When they got home, Carina and Zondra were champing at the bit, because Sarah had indicated that they should wear workout gear under whatever they came over in so they knew that they were going to get to see what was going on. When they wandered over around six, Chuck and Ellie were in the kitchen (because the Bartowskis were by far the best cooks in the group) and Sarah and Casey sitting up at the breakfast bench, talking to them. They waved the late comers over to share the drinks and chat but it took less than ten minutes for Carina to arc up and want to know what was going on, Sarah just grinned and held her hand out to Chuck, who slapped a $50 note in her palm, before grinning at Carina and thanking her for holding out more than five minutes, otherwise it would have cost him another fifty bucks. Sarah leant over the counter to kiss him before grabbing her drink, and her sister, and heading over to the lounge area. Once they had Carina and Zondra set up in front of the screen, she brought up the videos of Chuck's training in Prague and displayed them one after the other, with her or Casey pausing the display from time to time to discuss what Chuck was doing to mask his abilities at that point.

Carina kept looking over at Chuck while she was watching the videos, Zondra hadn't met him before this and didn't know the innocent, untrained Chuck that she'd met the first time she turned up in Burbank, but Carina still saw him as the same guy she first met (and in many ways he was still that guy), and she was having a hard time reconciling that Chuck with the unrelenting machine that she was watching on screen. When she looked at Sarah her sister's expression was quite thoughtful as she nodded, the Chuck in the kitchen was her lover and fiancé, but the Chuck on screen was the agent that their whole operation was relying on to meet the threats that they were facing, and at that point Carina understood the training thing, Chuck was using what he went through to bring the others up to a higher level to meet those threats, and from what they'd seen with Sarah and Ellie (and Casey), he was doing a good job of it. Sarah nodded again and went to refill her drink, while Carina met Casey's eye to get a nod from him to welcome her on board, when she looked at Zondra she saw that it was starting to dawn on her as well.

They sat through the videos, playing some a few times to get a better understanding of what they were seeing. They stopped for dinner and then they all went back to sit through the rest of them before they settled down to discuss what they'd been shown. Chuck talked about the approach he'd taken with the training in Prague, Ellie provided the medical analysis of the developments he'd made, and Sarah and Casey talked about the advances that he'd made between pre-training and post-training. To hear two of the world's very best agents telling them that Chuck had well and truly passed over them in nearly all these fields really drove the point home. Then Sarah and Casey went on to detail the advances that they'd made through training with Chuck and adopting his methods, and pointed out how far Ellie had come in a short time, and Carina and Zondra were in.

The demonstration Chuck gave when Zondra questioned how much stronger he was now was also quite convincing, as he just sighed and reached out with his left hand to straight arm Casey up above his head height, holding him up there one handed as if he weighed nothing for ten minutes as he talked. That answered any question of strength quite eloquently.

The first step was for Ellie to put them both through a thorough examination and testing regime, to provide the baseline metrics to measure improvements against, then they started them (gently) on the Team Bartowski training regime. The mornings started with about a fifteen minutes of stretching and warm-up in the form of yoga, tai chi or shaolin training before their "run", this was a half to one hour (or more) session of running at competitive track paces, liberally mixed with high level parkour moves, finishing with 15 minutes of yoga or tai chi for the loosen up and cool down session, there were a couple of reasons that these were kept to early morning only, the primary one was to keep the level of their abilities as secret as possible, but they'd also discovered that a couple of (well, four now) gorgeous women in tiny running outfits tended to distract drivers so much that they caused accidents, and Chuck and Casey were apparently interesting enough to have caused a few accidents for women drivers too, so it was almost as much in the interest of public safety as it was for security purposes that they ran at times when they were least likely to be seen. Throughout the day, as they'd noted, there were numerous short sessions of isometric/isotonic exercises, yoga, tai chi or shaolin training, plus the toned down weight training, bag work and sparring in Castle for apearances. While the exercise sessions tended to be short, there were enough of them to add up to at least an hour or two each day (not including the displays in Castle), usually more for Chuck. The main training sessions were at home after work, like the mornings 15 minutes of yoga, tai chi or shaolin training to warm up, then heavy sessions of isometric/isotonic training, intense bag work (using lead or tungsten shot filled bags) and wooden man sessions, and serious martial arts training and sparring sessions, finishing with 15 minutes of yoga or tai chi for a cool down. The night training usually took up two to three hours or more.

It was amusing to Sarah in particular to watch her sister and friend (who were actually damn good at what they did) struggle to get into the Team B training regime, at the start they didn't have the speed, endurance or parkour skills to come close to keeping up with the other four on their morning runs, and just the short sessions through the day were enough to have them crying in pain, but two things that pair had in spades was stubbornness and pride, so Sarah had a quiet word to Ellie and they made sure that the nice doctor was in their line of sight and giving them a target to reach as much as possible. Both Carina and Zondra had shown that they could apply themselves and be among the best in most fields, so all it would take to get them there was to give them the incentive to make the effort. The fact that she'd heard them both make some impolite comments about Chuck as they drooled when they saw him in a pair of tiny workout shorts made it a tad easier for Sarah to push them until they dropped, too, she still wasn't prepared to admit out loud just how jealous she could get over things like that, but Chuck was very private property, and her sister in particular better damn well remember that. They were bright girls, so it only took a few punishing sparring sessions and pointed comments to get the message across.

One time when they were going through their night training sessions, Chuck raised a question that had been on his mind since the night that they all bared their souls to one another. "What do you guys think about sharing the recording of what we told each other about ourselves with the rest of the council, and maybe sitting down with them to hear their stories?" That stopped everyone for a few minutes, they had told each other their darkest secrets that night, what had been done to the girls was terrible, and Sarah and Ellie couldn't imagine what their parents would think if they heard what they'd recounted, but it had been cathartic, and they felt as though a great weight was lifted now that they weren't carrying those burdens alone any more. Carina surprised them all by being the first to stand a little straighter and say "OK, they need to know who we are, and we need to know who they are." That gave Sarah the support she needed to stand beside her sister and add her agreement, followed by Casey, and Zondra.

That left Ellie crying and not knowing how to face her parents knowing her story, Sarah went to her and assured her that if she wasn't OK with it, none of the stories would be shared, it was all or nothing and none of them would pressure her if she didn't want to go ahead, but she pulled Ellie's face up to look her in the eye to make sure she got what she was telling her. "You have NOTHING to be ashamed of, none of what was done to you or you were forced to do was your fault, as Chuck said you were both a saint and a super woman, you were forced to look after your family before you were a teenager, and then made to support and raise Chuck alone before you were sixteen, yet all the while you were doing well enough at school to win the scholarships to pay your way through medical school AND bring up Chuck to be the best man I've ever met even with the terrible things done to you, if anyone can look down on you for the life you've led and what you've accomplished, they're too stupid to live and I'll make sure that I rectify that error!" Ellie looked her in the eye for about twenty seconds before nodding and relaxing into her arms to cry on her shoulder for a few minutes. When she had control of herself she straightened, sniffing, and said she was in. Chuck came over and pulled her into his arms, kissing her on the head before leaning over to put his arm around Sarah and do the same with her, and whisper "Thank you" to her. With that he looked around the group and proposed that they contact the rest of the Council with the offer to share their stories IF the rest of the Council was prepared to be as open and honest with them? Everyone nodded and agreed with the plan.

When they called for a video conference with the rest of the Council, it sparked quite a bit of concern that something big was going down, and some of them (most notably the General and Chuck's parents) got quite narky when they found out what it was for, but Bryan and Emma jumped at the chance for them all to truly share their stories, and they helped talk the others around. Chuck was a large part of the reason that his parents came around, as they understood from his expression and comments that this was a make or break issue for their relationship, and that if they hadn't agreed he'd be done with them. Once everyone else had agreed, the General acquiesced as well, accepting that if everyone else was prepared to air their skeletons, then she couldn't really refuse.

When they watched the recordings, the older Council members were devastated, especially Mary, Stephen and Emma, hearing what happened to Chuck, and especially Ellie, because they were left alone, and having it driven home what they'd pushed onto Ellie as a child even before they left made Mary and Stephen thoroughly ashamed of themselves, and it would be quite a while before they could meet the eye of either of their children again. When Emma heard what had happened to Sarah (she'd always be her little Sammie in her heart, but the woman that she was now, with Chuck, was Sarah and she accepted that), she broke down, unable to handle what her little girl had gone through, luckily Chuck had managed to contact Bryan and get him to be with Emma when she viewed Sarah's story, because he knew what it would do to her, especially with the other piece of information that had come out of Sarah's file. What those records had shown was that reason that Sarah and her father were being monitored, and Jack was finally arrested, was so that they could get their hands on Sarah. The CIA was trying to find leads to enable them to reacquire Emma, because she was one of, if not the best analyst they'd ever had (or heard of for that matter), and also to see whether Sarah had inherited those abilities from her mother (which she had). Therefore, after watching her for ten years and determining that she had the capabilities that they wanted, and more, as soon as she was old enough for them to be seen to drag her into the system they did so. Unfortunately when the time arrived it was that utterly evil bastard, Langston Graham, who got his hands on her and put her through hell. They tried to soften the blow to Emma with how they revealed that this was what put Sarah on the CIA's radar, but Sarah agreed that she had to be told at some point and the whole point of this was to get everything out there so that there were no more secrets to come back and bite them. That was why they asked caring, trusted Uncle Bryan to be there with Emma when she found all of this out, as they knew he'd give her the support she needed to get though it.

When the older Council members' stories came back, they were generally more like Casey's than the girls', Mary was a star at college, in the top few on all of her courses, cheerleader, doing really well in track and other athletic events, which was why she was recruited by the CIA, she did some training on weekends and took extra classes that they told her to, as well as going away to training camps on every break, then when she graduated near the top of her class, she went off to the Farm. She aced everything at the Farm, in fact many of the records that Sarah broke twenty years later there were still her's. Much like Chuck had in training, she pushed herself until she dropped every day and showed up everyone else there, which didn't make her at all popular but it did draw a lot of attention from rather important people. The way she turned down any and all advances there (from trainers as well as trainees) because she was just focussed on succeeding got her the nickname of the Frost Queen, and that obviously got around because her official code name came from it when she left the Farm. Back in those days the seduction training wasn't handled anything like it was later, but women agents were regarded as nothing better than fuck toys for marks, other agents and their superiors, so Mary was ridden hard about her unwillingness to be that unless absolutely necessary for a mission, but (much like Sarah) she managed to override the condemnation by using her other skills to succeed on her missions, but like at the Farm, it made her rather unpopular with her superiors. In the time that she was a field agent, she met very few people in the business that she could respect enough to be friends with, there was one little red headed fire cracker in the NSA, Diane Beckman, another CIA agent, Bryan Mills, that all the girls agreed was the only good man in the spy game, as well as being one hell of an agent, and lovely woman and brilliant CIA analyst by the name of Emma Burdon, who'd been blackmailed into working for the CIA as the only way to keep seeing her little girl, Sammie, aside from them she didn't find anyone worthy of friendship in the business. As she was a star and test results showed other attributes that fitted into certain people's plans, Mary was allocated to the protection detail of a technological genius that the CIA had acquired to give them the edge over everyone else in the technology space. As luck would have it, she and Stephen fell in love and started a family together and things were pretty good for a while (though not as good for their children, as she found out), then she was sent in to recover the host of Agent X but was outed as a CIA agent and got stuck with being the right hand of Alexei Volkoff for over 20 years. To maintain her cover and stay alive she'd had to kill, torture and make deals for disgusting things, but she'd managed to hold off Alexei's demands for a physical relationship, and that's where she still was.

"OK, most of you know me as General Diane Beckman, I came from a long line of military and intelligence icons, and though I refused to follow the path of marrying a suitable rising star and becoming the woman behind the throne as my parents wanted me to, they gave me the backing I needed to get my career on track. I joined the Air Force via officer school and quickly moved into the intelligence wing. With that background I managed to get into the National Security Agency as an agent and started doing missions. Unfortunately I didn't have Mary's ability so I had to sleep with marks a lot more than she did, and had some bad experiences and close calls. I met Mary and Bryan when they rescued me from a bad situation that was about to get a LOT worse, it was the first time I'd ever been in a situation where I was naked with a man and all he was interested in was making sure that I was alright and getting me out of there, yes, Bryan was the only good man in the business then, and Chuck is the only one who's matched him since. Anyway, I didn't blow my chance with them as the position I was in wasn't due to my own incompetence but rather being forced into it by superiors who didn't care, or tell me, that it was basically a suicide mission, so I gained two wonderful friends that day. After that I managed to do other missions with them, and other CIA agents who proved just how good they were (the comparison wasn't kind to the others), and I met Emma though Mary, she missed you so much when she had to be away from you Sarah. I did manage to be around when Ellie and Chuck were born, and even managed to hold Chuck the day he was born, but then Graham tightened up security around Stephen and anyone who wasn't part of Graham's team was pushed away from the family. A couple of years after Sarah's father took her away and we helped Emma get away and hide, I stupidly fell for an older version of Bryce Larkin and got knocked up. My family was furious that after all the strings they'd pulled to get me onto the career track I wanted, I did something stupid like this to threaten it. They were even more furious when I refused to get an abortion because I thought I was in love, well maybe I was because he's still here. Anyway, communications technology back wasn't anything like it is now, so my family managed to get me posted to an out of the way backwater until the pregnancy ran its course (their words, not mine) and I had the baby, I gave her to a married cousin of mine who couldn't have children to raise as her own, in hope that being "Auntie Diane" would be enough of a part of her life. Then my family pulled strings to get any reference or inference to a pregnancy permanently removed from all my records, and I went back to DC to get my career moving again. For some reason I stayed with Josephine's father and we both visited her as "Aunt Diane" and "Uncle Roan", up until she had an accident when she was in her mid-teens, when it came out that neither of her "parents" were compatible donors for her she had a meltdown and to settle her down they told her the truth about who her real parents were. It took a while but we have a real relationship with her now, she loves my cousin and her husband and they've done a wonderful job of raising her, but I'm so happy that she can accept me as her mother after I gave her up for my career. Some of you met her last year as Hannah, Chuck's cover girlfriend."

"Anyway, my career has gone well since I came back from my exile, and I'm running the NSA now, about three and a half years ago my private life collided with my professional life when Mary's son and Emma's daughter suddenly came on the radar as key parts of the most important intelligence project ever, we couldn't tell them anything and I had to do terrible things to both of them as we were all being watched constantly, but they've managed to get through it, and hopefully they don't judge me too harshly for what I've done, but just over a year ago we managed to bring Chuck into the picture, while still forcing him to do terrible things to Sarah until we could safely bring her in six months later. When they came up on the radar I had to pick someone from the NSA to work with them and protect them, I didn't have any active agents that I could trust, so I had to take a risk and assign the NSA's top agent to the team, on the face of it he was the logical choice because he was Sarah's equivalent in the NSA, he had an unparalleled success record and kill tally, so the CIA wouldn't question his assignment, but the real reason that I assigned John Casey was that I'd known him for over fifteen years and had him under my command for over ten years, so I knew him to be a man of integrity who would try to do the right and honourable thing when he could and that, when combined with his ability, meant that he was the best protection that I could assign to Chuck. After Sarah was brought on board we had resistance to the proposal to bring John on board, and then we were forced by a compromised oversight committee to add an enemy agent to the team, so Sarah had to endure getting close to him to try and determine what he was up to (that was when my daughter was brought in to help with the cover to pretend that Chuck had moved on from Sarah), and as John was out in the cold the other side managed to blackmail him with something from his past into committing treason, but Chuck engineered a way to bring John into the operation to save Sarah and capture significant people from the Ring, which gave us the chance to re-instate John and bring him onto the team, then they brought Ellie on board, we had a confrontation to bring the Ring down and finally Carina and Zondra were brought in and here we are." After being nudged by Mary, mainly, Stephen added his story next.

"I am Stephen Bartowski, but most would know me better as Orion. In the mid seventies I was the golden boy of technology, I was finishing up at MIT at the top of the game and everyone wanted me. When the CIA approached me with a spiel about doing great things for my country and offering me a grant and great facilities at Sanford to do my doctorate and serve the country I lapped it up and jumped at what was offered. Soon after I got there I realised that I'd gotten myself into far more than I'd realised, but I couldn't get out of it then, they had me trapped. The only thing that I was happy about was Mary, the girl they assigned to work with me and watch over me. Anyway, I built the toys that the CIA wanted and they got more and more demanding, but I didn't mind that much as Mary and I were together, then Eleanor came along and it was wonderful, and a little over three and a half years later Charles came along too, but our family was the only good thing we had, they kept sending Mary off on missions and kept piling requirements on me so I hardly had any time to spend with them, especially after Charles was born and Graham stopped anyone but his team getting anywhere near us, and then Graham forced other people onto the team, like Ted Roark. When Charles was about nine, Graham insisted that we had to use the Agent X persona to put someone into the Russian arms trade under deep cover, and he convinced my friend Hartley (who had been on the team for over ten years) to do it as he'd taken the Agent X upload OK back before Charles was born. Hartley became Alexie Volkoff, and the persona was locked in, then when Mary went in to bring Hartley back she was betrayed and has been trapped there ever since. I went a little crazy after Mary left, Graham tried to convince me that Volkoff killed her but I didn't believe him so I spent all my time searching for her with whatever resources I could use. After Charles uploaded the Intersect image a bit later and handled it OK, I thought that that'd be my way to finish the Intersect project and be free to find Mary, so I uploaded it, only to find that my brain couldn't handle it the way Charles' could. I could feel myself degenerating, so after a bit over 18 months or so of trying to find a fix without success I decided that my children would be far better off with me missing, than having me sitting there as a drooling vegetable, I left. The fact that I had missed what I was doing to them even when I was there says something about the state I was in, but to be honest it probably wasn't that much worse than how I'd been with them before Mary was taken away from us. It took me another 6-9 months (I'm not really sure) to come up with the governor, which appeared to arrest the degeneration and left me able to think, but as you can see I'm still not quite right. Given that I'd come close to leading the people chasing me to them a few times already, I decided that they'd be safer if I stayed away from them. If I'd seen what they were going through and was thinking straighter, I'd like to think that I would have found a way to get money to them to save them some of the problems that they were having, but we'll never know, all we do know is that I did nothing to help them, or save them. I slowly got my head together a bit better, but my paranoia about the government kept making me do things like help Bryce Larkin get Charles kicked out of Stanford, and I'm ashamed to say that I also helped Larkin when he came back again after Charles met Sarah, because I still didn't trust anything to do with the government. On my good days I know how crazy I'm being, but other days I can't trust anyone but Mary, Eleanor and Charles, and I don't even trust them to make the right choices. Eleanor was right, I am a mad scientist, I only hope that my children can help me find a way to fix me." The next one who provided her story was Emma, and she was still trying to deal with what she'd heard about what her daughter had gone through.

"As Sarah said, I'm Emma Burdon, I grew up down south and we didn't have the money for me to dream of going to university, it would have been nice but it was out of the question, at high school I was what Chuck would call a nerd, I studied hard and was first in the class most of the time, I even took extra classes where I could to get the most out of my time there, but the best I could do was go to teacher's college and become a teacher. When Sarah's father came to town he swept me off my feet, he was a total charmer. I was totally ashamed when I found out I was pregnant, because my mama raised me to be a good girl, that was why I told my parents that we'd fallen in love and eloped, so they wouldn't think I was just some silly girl who fell for a sweet talker and got knocked up, even though I was. Soon after I told him that I was pregnant he started saying that if he was going to support a family he needed to make some real money, and roped me into helping him with some of his scams. Given what I know now, especially what he did to Carina's mother just before me, I'm guessing that his plan was just to get me help him make some money and run off, but the fact that the plans I made up for him made him far more money than he usually got must have convinced him to stay, as long as the golden goose was laying anyway. That went on, with me planning his cons and organising them for success, for the next three and a half to four years, half the time we'd do well, the rest of the time he'd decide that he could do better than I planned for and change things on the fly, when he did that we usually had to run with no take, much like Sarah described."

"When Sammie (sorry, Sarah) was three, he pulled the same stunt and ran when he was found out, but he didn't bother to tell me that he'd bolted, so I was still sitting there with our daughter waiting for him to come back when the cops turned up. They took us and all of the paperwork in, and then the next day some imposing men in g-man suits turned up to question me. It felt more like a final exam than an interrogation, they'd present scenarios and I'd give them a plan and probable outcome for each, in the end they offered me a deal, if I agreed to work for them when they needed me, I could go home with my daughter, otherwise I'd go to prison and she'd go into foster care, and I'd never see her again. Given the choice of working for them or losing my little girl I just agreed then and there, of course they had conditions, I couldn't tell anyone anything about what I was doing, I wasn't allowed to have anything further to do with my partner's cons, and I had to go whenever they called for me, but as I said, when the choice was losing my little girl, I just agreed."

"Things got tough after that, they'd call and I'd be picked up and taken to some facility where I had to stay to work for the duration of the assignment, dealing with men called Mr Smith or Mr Jones who'd leer at me and proposition me, but didn't take it any further than that (I didn't find out about that protection order over me until I went on the run), non-stop arguments with Jack (as you know him) about why I wouldn't help him and where I was going for days or weeks at a time, tearful sessions with Sammie about why she couldn't come with me and why I couldn't tell her where I was going. Jack started taking Sammie along on his scams as a prop because he couldn't be bothered coming up with an excuse for my mother when he dropped her off. Because Sammie was so gorgeous (like she is still is now), he found that he managed to do better with her along, and from that point he took her along every time, and the gigs just got longer and longer, by the time she was five, they were usually gone for days after I got back from my assignments, and my chances to see her were getting less and less, until the time when she was seven that they didn't come back at all. I waited for months for him to bring her home, then I started making arrangements to disappear with Mary, Bryan and Diane's help. I made sure that I set up a contact method via my mother so that Sammie could find me if she called and then I ran."

"For the next four or five years, I'd stay in one place for a month or two, working in diners, offices or whatever and wait for a call from Sammie, if the place was really nice I might stretch it out to three months but that was the most I could risk with the CIA after me. When mama died, Sammie was twelve then, I stayed where I was for five months because I had to be able to contact my little girl. As soon as we'd set up a better contact system that we could rely on I ran again because I had to be pushing my luck. If she'd told me what was going on when she was with her father, I would have found a way of getting her away from him so we could be together, but I thought she was happy with him, so I left her alone. When she was seventeen and I lost contact with her for months, I got worried and then I was contacted by Bryan and Diane to tell me that she'd been coerced into joining the CIA. They (and Stephen) helped me set up a safe identity which meant that I could stay in one place and be there for Sarah if she needed me. I just wished that she'd realised that it was safe for her to come and see me those times she came to watch me for a while before leaving, yes, sweetheart, I saw you those times, but when I tried to come out to see you, you'd take off, so after that I just stayed inside and watched you watching me, it was the closest we could be to being together then."

"About six months before Chuck got the Intersect sent to him, Diane, Bryan, Mary, Stephen and I got together and decided that we had to act if we wanted to do something about what was going on under the covers in the intelligence communities, and governments, around the world, so we formed the Council, and convinced Diane over her misgivings that Roan was a good man and would help us succeed, so we offered him a place and he joined us. Then, just before Chuck got the Intersect, I got to see my little girl again, she'd called me for help with the baby when she was in Budapest (I didn't tell her that I knew it wasn't her's because that would have told her I'd been watching her) and then she brought her to me to look after her. It broke my heart to look at my little girl and see that she believed that she was too much damaged goods to be around me or the baby, but all I could do was help her and hope that she would find her way back. You have saved my baby Chuck, and I will be eternally grateful to you for that. Anyway, that's my story, you work with me in the Council and I hope to be in your lives a lot more now, bye." The next one to tell his story was Roan.

"Hello, I am Roan Montgomery, and I would like to say that the slanderous comments from Diane about me are unfounded but, unfortunately, I can't. I am, however, offended about being compared to something such as Bryce Larkin, that was a low blow Diane. Generally, though, the slurs were accurate, my prime skill has always been to read and manipulate people, especially the opposite sex, which was why I was the instructor of choice for the CIA's seduction school, even though I always campaigned against their use of sex in missions. At the risk of showing my age, to quote the icons of my youth, I'm a lover, not a fighter. I have always had more success charming the information out of people than I did beating it out of them, which is a good thing because while I may be competent I'm not up to the ability of most of you on that front. For all my failings, however, I will maintain that I've always stood on the side of right, and never forced anyone into anything, Diane if you chose to be honest with yourself, you'd admit that you came after me because of my reputation and that I didn't once turn away when you told me the happy news about Josephine. As for my background, as with Mary I was recruited by the CIA out of university, as back then I was quite the star of track and field as well as doing well with my studies. To be honest I just scraped through the Farm, but I managed a good deal of success on my missions due to my other talents, so I ended up having a successful career, though I didn't have anything like Diane's ambition for high office. Anyway, I am not, and nor was I ever, a towering hero such as some of you are, but I am still quite good at schmoozing my way through to get the answers and solutions we need in tricky solutions, and I will stand beside you to fight the good fight, and I hope that you know that you can depend on me when you need me." That short, rather Roanish, history left Bryan's story.

"I am Bryan Mills, some of you know me from when I was in the CIA, my story is similar to Mr Casey's, grew up in a small town and after being king of the heap in high school, I wasn't going to work in the mill or any other dead end jobs in town, so I joined the Army. I shone there and soon moved up to Special Forces, where I was recruited to join the CIA's Special Activities Division. When I was in SAD I showed skills that got me moved into the Special Operations Group, and I was loaned to the Deputy Director for Operations for other missions when required, it was on these missions that I met Mary and Diane. I got injured in the late '80s and was sent home on convalescent leave for a few months, and while I was there I met and married Lenny, that is Lenore, my daughter Kim's mother, she knew about my job but over the years she got tired of waiting at home with our daughter to find out whether I'd been killed on a mission and divorced me, getting re-married to a wealthy but shady businessman, Stuart St John, soon after. I held on with the CIA for another ten years or so but I was getting tired and missing my daughter, so I was planning on getting out of field work and being stationed back in the States so I could spend more time with Kim, but then we decided to form the Council, so I retired altogether so that I'd free to move about and deal with the things we needed dealt with. A couple of years ago, Lenny and her husband guilted me into letting Kim go on a trip to Paris with her friend, and she was taken by slavers to be sold off to some pervert as a sex toy. I had to pull half of Paris apart and burnt a lot of bridges but I managed to get Kim back, alive and mostly unharmed, though her friend died while she was with the slavers. Now, I'm doing cover work in security and working with the Council running operations, as well as providing backup to you guys if you need me, and trying to be here for my daughter."

Strangely enough, it was the General's story that Carina found that she could relate to the most, as she knew quite well what it was like to try and live up to a friend (or sister) who was that much better than you in the field, of course she didn't have the family connections to push her to the top of the ladder like the General had, but what she was seeing now made her question that she'd ever wanted that. Of the older Council member's stories, the one that chilled her the most was Bryan's, she remembered how much he loved his little girl and could well imagine that if he hadn't found her mainly safe and unharmed, well she doubted that Paris would be standing now.

While not quite as cathartic as when they shared their own stories with each other, hearing the elders' stories did make them feel a lot more comfortable with them, everyone had hung their skeletons out for all to see, they all knew what the members of the group had done, and what they felt ashamed of, and they were all ready to help each other get past that. Chuck and Ellie still had issues with their parents, but their parents didn't blame them for that, and they certainly wouldn't be getting defensive after what they'd heard that they were responsible for, because they could have found a way to help them if they'd made an effort. The main thing, though, was that everything was out in the open now, if there was an issue it could be discussed, and secrets wouldn't put the members of the Council at risk, they had enough risk from the ones they were up against.

With that out of the way, Chuck brought up the plan that he'd wanted to build up the Council for, bringing down Volkoff Industries so that, among other things, Mary could come home. While it would normally be considered lunacy for twelve people to consider taking down an organisation like Volkoff Industries, they now knew that they had twelve of the best, including Roan, and it was possible that it wasn't so crazy an idea after all.

That set the plans in motion, and in the meantime they progressed their preparations, namely getting the team in shape with the exercise regime that Carina and Zondra still hated even though they'd committed to working with it, and working on the Intersect fix in hope of improving Stephen's, and Chuck's, capabilities to allow them to kick off the technology blitzkrieg that they would be relying on to take down Volkoff Industries and any other groups that they came up against.


	10. Teamwork

**Some elements here have been lifted from my earlier stories as they explain (I believe) the results that they're seeing.**

**Usual disclaimer, not rights to any characters portrayed.**

One of the two women in the van wasn't used to being the backup on missions, and it grated on her more than a little. While she had to concede that she wasn't up to the level of at least three of the four people in the building at the moment, her muttered comment about the fourth and nepotism was heard over the radio, which got her a response.

"What was that Panther? We discussed this and you agreed that Leopard has better breaking and entering skills than you do, didn't you?" Even with the voice changing filters they used, they could recognise each other from the tone and wording used, so she knew who it was that said that. "Yes Wolf, but I still wonder how much the fact that she's S.. Tigress's sister effected the decision." "Panther, have you forgotten when we were in the CATs? Leopard was always the best at breaking into things, that's what the decision was based on, don't make me come out there and kick your arse! Lioness, can you try and talk some sense into her please?"

At that the other woman cut their mics and turned to her companion. "What's this about Zondra? I was in the meeting and everyone, including you, agreed that Carina was the one who had the skillset needed to get her half of the team into the building. You know that Sarah didn't choose her over you because she's her sister." "I know Ellie, I'm just not used to not being in the middle of things, I was always at the first in the door, sitting it out is hard for me!" "This is one mission, this time she had the skills needed to get half the team into the building while Chuck and Sarah go in the other end, next time it's just as likely to be your skills that are needed." "Yeah, I know you're right, I'm just frustrated I guess." With that she sighed and leant over to switch her mic back on "Tigress, Wolf, Leopard, issue resolved, sorry, just getting frustrated out here." The response that came back from Sarah was rather less aggravated than before "You'll get your chance to shine soon Panther, promise." They all laughed quietly at the crack that followed "Roger that, I'd prefer a partner who's less likely to get me my arse shot off!" Zondra grinned as she responded "I'll see what I can do Bear."

In the van they turned the mics off again as they had a laugh, Zondra turned to Ellie and asked who came up with the call signs/code names, anyway, because they fit pretty well. Ellie responded that it was Chuck, of course, except for his own, Wolf came from Sarah, and Carina's obviously came from the "Leopards don't change their spots" line. Zondra couldn't help laughing as she repeated "Obviously!" They also laughed about the code names allocated to the others in the Council, while General certainly didn't appreciate getting Cougar (they didn't let her know where that one came from, other than that it didn't come from Chuck or Sarah), the rest didn't really mind and conceded that they fit, Mary had Jaguar, Bryan Jackal, Emma Lynx, Roan Coyote, Stephen Fox, Josie Ocelot, and Alex had Bearcat, for obvious reasons. The reason for the code names was that while Stephen and Chuck ensured that they had the highest levels of security possible on their communications, far higher than any government systems, they understood better than most that any security could be broken, so they always used voice changers, and always used each other's code names when they were talking to each other to prevent anyone being identified via their communications.

While she was in the van, Zondra found that she understand Chuck's position on doing the exercises while they were doing something else, she and Ellie moved the chairs aside and stood in front of the screens doing isometric/isotonic exercises and tai chi, and not only did it drain some of the frustration, it helped them focus on what was on the screens better, so they found that they picked up on things that they may have missed otherwise.

Inside the building, things were proceeding well, the two teams entered and proceeded to the computer centre and filing room, Chuck and Sarah were in the computer centre installing programs on the servers to feed information out to the Council's systems and copying large slabs of data onto the storage devices they had with them, while Casey and Carina were in the filing room installing bugs to collect information, as well as copying what they could while they were there. When they were done, they covered up any sign that they'd been there and slipped out, returning to the van to head out. When they got to the van, Zondra met Sarah's look then went to her with a hug and an apology, doing the same with Carina, and Chuck.

None of them had much time to themselves now, they had to put the time in to keep Hunter Security a viable cover business, do the government missions, do the Council missions, put in the training hours each day and on top of that Stephen, Chuck and Ellie were trying to get the updated and "fixed" Intersect done to get Stephen's head straight (and optimise it for Chuck, and anyone else who chose to take it on), and they were all working on gathering and collecting information about Volkoff Industries so that they could formulate a plan to take it down. The shakedown and final tuning and tweaking of the systems for the Valkyrie were done now, so they had it up and working as the primary transport to move the team wherever they had to be, though if it was only one or two who had to go, then the Falcon still worked fine (actually, better than before as Chuck had tweaked the control systems and surfaces to eliminate the instability that his father's original design had). Getting the Council's equipment and transport issues out of the way gave Stephen much more time to drive the on-line searches for information on Volkoff Industries, which of course sped up the search.

Zondra soon got her chance to step up on the missions as Chuck had to concentrate on completing a few things with the Bartowski Brain Trust (Stephen, Ellie and himself), so Sarah was teamed up with Carina while Casey was teamed up with Zondra on a few missions, and they had Bryan and Emma in the "van" for support and backup. It was actually a good setup, as Carina was more under control when she was partnered with her sister and Casey had a partner who was less likely to "get him his arse shot off". They were all experienced field agents and got the job done, if without the extra elements that Chuck usually brought to the table. One thing that Sarah noted was that it was more exciting (IE dangerous) without Chuck as they didn't see or recognise things that he could pick up, and it took them a lot longer to get through the systems that they came up against. If she was being honest with herself though she, like the others, relished the excitement of the extra fire fights that they got into without using Chuck's planning to slide by the confrontations, in their "normal" Council missions, they had less opportunities to make use of the weapons that Stephen (and Chuck) had supplied them with, and the field agents did appreciate superior weapons.

When Stephen, Chuck and Ellie started working on the "Bartowski Intersect", Chuck's superior coding ability and Ellie's Neurology expertise quickly showed considerable areas of the existing Intersects that were in serious need of improvement. Stephen was gifted in all areas of technology, but his focus was more on engineering and the hardware/devices whereas Chuck's focus had always been more on the software/coding side, and that was what the Intersect was based on. Once they'd examined the code, Chuck dove into recoding the entire Intersect "engine" to allow faster and more efficient operations with less impact on the brain, while Ellie's input allowed them to rework all the interfaces between the Intersect and the brain and especially the body's control systems to allow it to operate in a more natural and efficient manner, so that everything felt a lot more natural, and worked faster and more effectively. It also meant that data extracted from the Intersect database was "remembered" by the brain in a similar manner to the normal learning process, so from that point on it could be recalled like any other memories.

Of course to create and load the new Intersect, Stephen and Chuck had to create a super computer and the equivalent of an intersect room, luckily this was what Stephen was best at, which meant that they managed to build the Hunter Processing Centre in a couple of weeks. It used a communications interface of multiple gigabit links, multiplexed to feed the computer the bandwidth needed, it initially supported up to 100 Terabytes of memory, and 5 Petabytes of flash storage (for up to 100 concurrent virtual instances running 1TB of memory, with enough processing power and fast enough bus architecture to support full capacity operations on all instances) the primary display interface used an air mouse/remote to select and control each display array (plus audio output and input devices), the base display array was a single 65", 2K display that could be configured as 4, separate 32", 1K displays associated to separate virtual instances, Chuck's preferred configuration was 4 (2 x 2), high end 65" 2K displays butted together, that could be configured as an array of options between 16, segregated 32" 1K displays of separate virtual instances of the system in different languages, and a single 130", 4K display (the display system had the capabilities to expand that to a 19.25 x 8.5' (255"), curved 12 screen display array (4 x 3) that would support 48 separate instances concurrently, creating an array that was a bit of overload for normal usage, but that set-up was in Stephen's bunker, as it was good for diving into big, complex issues and doing the Intersect uploads), and the smart keyboard/trackball interface that remapped to the language that was applied to the system active/selected at the time. The Processing Centre itself was located in a sealed chamber in the bunker complex, kept below freezing in an inert gas environment for optimal operation and to preserve the environment, you basically needed a space suit to go in there.

What they didn't realise at first was that the extent of the differences that Ellie implemented to the way that the Intersect interfaced with the body's control systems meant that the interfaces were at a much lower level than the previous intersect versions had used, so as well as being more natural and far faster (as they didn't have to negotiate through all sorts of higher functions and logic processes to send the commands, they essentially plugged directly into the core body control system), they apparently triggered the body's repair mechanisms at that low level. The body still held the core ability of lower life forms to regrow or repair just about any part of itself, it was (by their theory, at least) the "higher functions" of the brain that got in the way of the body doing this, and that was what they believed was happening when the Bartowski Intersect interfaced into the body's control systems at such a low level and triggered the body's repair mechanisms to rejuvenate the body.

As the only known safe Intersect test subject, Chuck loaded the "Bartowski Intersect" once they thought it was safe to do so, and the effects were rather astounding. The optimised Intersect version allowed Chuck to get the maximum performance and benefit out of the Intersect. One of the most promising side effects of the Bartowski Intersect was the vitality that he acquired, and the fact that his general physiological state was steadily improving the longer he had it. He was fitter, stronger, faster, more flexible and better co-ordinated, with with better endurance all the time (not only when he was accessing the Intersect). Aside from his performance, it was obvious that any injuries that he acquired were healing at a faster rate than normal, and pre-existing damage seemed to be being repaired as well. Another thing that they found was that the BI (Bartowski Intersect) apparently had no trouble accessing any Intersect database in the host's head, Chuck knew that he'd coded it to locate the BI database in order to access the data, but what he found now that it was loaded was that it located and accessed ALL Intersect databases present in the brain, and therefore searched all of them for the requested data. If the data itself was corrupted, that may be a problem, but when issues appeared to come from the behaviour of the Intersect code, having it over-written by the BI appeared to eliminate many problems. It was looking as though the BI was, in fact, the ultimate Intersect.

Ellie had been running full physiological and neurological scans on Chuck on a regular basis ever since she was brought into the picture, and soon after he loaded the BI, she started noting changes, previous scans had shown notable areas of damage in the brain from the earlier Intersects, the raw version he loaded when he was nine or ten, the 1.0 version that he was sent by Bryce Larkin, the Fulcrum version that he was forced to load at the Fulcrum facility (along with the Fulcrum test that'd killed the rest of the subjects), and the 2.0 version that he loaded after Ellie's wedding, not to mention the multiple updates and upgrades he loaded, and the damage that occurred when the 2.0 version started glitching on him and almost had him committed, but since he'd loaded the BI, the evidence of this damage was diminishing at a fairly rapid rate. This showed a lot of promise in regard to their hopes of repairing the damage to their father's brain that came from the Intersect (and possibly other things?), so Chuck was working on a cut down version (BI Lite, as it were) for his father to load while they waited to try and make sure that there weren't any detrimental side effects that they were missing.

While all this was gong on, they also went through the data retention tests and genetic markers which appeared to give the indication that it was safe to load and use the Intersect. One genetic marker appeared to relate to Norse bloodlines, and specifically Berserkers. There was limited test evidence recorded as the incidence of "true" Berserkers in recent times was quite rare, but the theories appeared to relate to a hyper sensitivity to adrenalin, in small doses it increased the strength, speed, co-ordination and mental acuity, so that they became supermen (or women), and neural pathways appeared to differ from "normal" people as well, in large doses (equating to instances where "normal" people perform acts of extreme strength etc due to adrenalin), the Berserkers would be out of control, far stronger and faster than anyone else could possibly be, not reacting to injures and not capable of rational thought while in that state. The extreme state was obviously not the target for the Intersect, but rather the "enhanced" state, as these capabilities along with the different neural pathways enabled a capability to host and utilise the Intersect that "normal" people couldn't reach. As this line of investigation seemed to be valid, they had full DNA tests run up for all of them, and everyone went through the data retention tests, to see how safe it may be if anyone came in contact with the Intersect.

When there were no adverse effects from the BI after three weeks, Stephen loaded the "lite" version (which was basically the same code, but with only the bare bones of the database to go with it), to overwrite the early Intersect in his head, and within a couple of days he was already showing improvement, both in his behaviour and on the scans that Ellie was doing. The results that Stephen was getting, on the heels of the results that Chuck got, were raising quite a bit of interest (and hope), as everyone in the group appeared be compatible with the BI Lite at the very least, and Ellie and Sarah (and possibly more) looked like they'd be OK with the full version of the BI. Even the BI Lite offered significant advantages to the host, so the consensus was to wait a few weeks to make sure Stephen was handling it OK, and then load the others with the BI Lite, only adding to the BI databases when the host appeared ready to handle it, Stephen had access to the original Intersect database in his head, and Ellie and Sarah worked up to the "full" Intersect database that Chuck loaded, but the rest only received subsets of the database as needed to protect them from overload.

They staggered the BI loads so that it just looked like each person was off for a day or two, easily explained away. As expected, Sarah and Ellie started reacting the quickest to the benefits of the BI, showing more power, speed and endurance and better coordination when they were working out or sparring, but Carina wasn't too far behind them, with Casey and Zondra coming in only a little slower. As they assimilated the changes, they all stepped up their training regimes, part of the reason for the others was that being at least six weeks behind Chuck on the upgrade, they were getting a little disheartened to find themselves even further behind him, but once they'd assimilated the BI, and especially once they'd loaded the skills database, they started closing the gap again. One thing that the others noted, and which was borne out by redoing the data retention tests, was that their memory and access to memories started improving once the BI was loaded, it probably happened with Chuck as well, but the effect was less noticeable with him given how close to 100% access (retention) he started at. An unfortunate side effect of that, though, was that memories that they'd previously managed to repress came back in force, which was a problem, especially for the girls.

Hearing the stories from the girls, especially Ellie, Sarah and Carina, had done nothing to reverse the change in Chuck's behaviour on missions, when he flashed on those that he was fighting against and the records showed that they were a danger to others, especially women, it was more common now for him to switch to lethal ammunition and/or use lethal force against them. He still planned the missions to avoid confrontation and get in and out undetected if at all possible, but he no longer insisted on sparing those who were a danger to others. On the government missions, he tended to carry a "real" gun as well as a tranq pistol now, and the "real" gun was getting almost as much use as the tranq pistol.

One thing the found that they had to be careful about was how they addressed each other on missions, as they'd all, at some point, forget and start to refer to each other as their Council call signs on government missions. As a result, they had to scan the recordings after each mission and redact any references the Council call signs from the recordings before they were filed, just another piece of work to be covered off.

They'd managed to work out a fair rotation for the missions now (both Government and Council), so that everyone had their share of the action and everyone did their stint of running support from the van. This meant that no-one felt like the "fat kid who doesn't get picked" (as per Casey's favourite whine), and got to practice both their active skills, and the technical skills needed in the support capacity. One good thing that came out of that was that Carina and Zondra recognised that they needed to work on their technical skills to really deliver as part of the team. They had tended to look down their noses at that side of the business before they joined the team, but now they could recognise that in the bigger scheme of things, that side was actually more important, so they concentrated on learning what they needed to so they could step up to the requirements.

It was when they were on the government missions that they really appreciated the regenerative effect of the BI, because they didn't have the protection of the Council gear on those missions (especially the girls, who had to wear the skimpy outfits considered appropriate by some dork who probably wanted to drool over the pictures of them), and therefore injuries of some kind were quite common. The ability to heal that much faster was definitely a plus in those circumstances.

They had all of Team Bartowski committed to the training regime and making good progress now, and Bryan, Josie and Alex were added to the program where possible to bring them up to speed, even Roan joined in to improve himself. As well as the physical training, they hacked the security feeds from Castle to allow them to slip the others in for weapons training, and also to allow Team Bartowski to train with the Hunter weapons (as they were now referred to) on the range there (and to use the better dojo facilities that they had in Castle). The Council's team was getting ready for the battle that they had ahead of them.

**A/N Just a quick point in response to the review, the development of the Bartowski Intersect would have happened over a period of several months, as they started working on it just after Ellie was read into the family secrets. Also, with the originator of the Intersect to explain the principals it was built on, Chuck who was far better at coding/hacking and Ellie to provide Neurology insights, logically they could have done a better job than anyone else. FWIW.**


	11. Preparations

**If anyone's interested in the back story on how Frank Martin was introduced into this 'verse, it's in my earlier oneshot, Exit Strategy FWIW.**

**NB: It's looking like interest in this story has dried up, so I'll probably be winding it up in the next chapter or two unless I get indications otherwise.**

**Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

Chuck looked up at the ceiling and sighed, this world they were part of and what it did to the people in it was killing his love life. He was engaged to a wonderful and incredibly beautiful woman who he was madly in love with, but it seemed like nearly every night they had someone (or two someones) climbing into their bed to be comforted. It was like having kids, if their kids were all beautiful women. Even though he was raised to be very respectful of women (and he was) it might have been like a wet dream if one of those women wasn't his sister, and another one his soon to be sister-in-law.

The problem was a combination of the Bartowski Intersect upload enhancing access to memories, and the exercise that they'd done to get everyone's secrets out in the open so that they couldn't hurt them, or the team, any more. All the women in the group had been subjected to horrific things, including rape, in their lives and since they'd uploaded the BI all those memories that they'd managed to repress in the past had come back in full to haunt them. As a result, none of them were getting through the night without nightmares most nights at the moment, hopefully that would fade soon, but for now they all needed to be comforted when the nightmares hit them. While something seemed to be developing between Ellie and Casey and Carina had some history with Casey as well, it was Chuck and Sarah they all came to to be comforted, and they didn't begrudge them that, even though Sarah was having the same nightmares. But it was stopping them from really having any quality time with each other at the moment.

The result of the nightmares was that none of them (aside from Casey, maybe) was getting much rest at the moment, and with their hectic Hunter Security, government and Council spy and training schedules, it meant that they were all pretty much tired and out of sorts most of the time. The only thing that could lift Chuck's spirits was Sarah, and vice versa. The gruelling training and work schedule that they stuck to did help, actually, in that they were too busy and tired for much of the day to pay attention to their demons, but unfortunately when it came time to sleep they couldn't be ignored.

However the night went though, just before dawn they all got up, went through their warm up exercises and went for their hour to hour and a half run/parkour session, coming back for a further cool down session before breakfast, then showering and heading off to the office. They rarely had clients actually in the office, so for the most part they didn't have to keep up appearances while they were there, but about half the day was spent on Hunter business and half on spy business (either their "official" government roles, or what they did for the Council). If they didn't have any government missions at night, they'd usually close up the office around six and head home to have dinner, do their nightly training sessions and then either do Council missions or work on the hunt for intel to help them bring down Volkoff Industries, they very rarely got to bed before midnight, and it was usually at least a few hours after that.

Soon after Carina and Zondra moved into Ellie's old apartment, they'd installed a door in the common wall between their's and Chuck and Sarah's apartment, so that it was easier for them to come and go without having to cross the courtyard. This meant that when they finished up in the early hours of the morning, they could just wander off to bed without going outside, though it also made it all too simple for them to come up to crawl into bed with them when they'd been having nightmares. Casey still had to go outside to get to his apartment, because it was on the other side of the courtyard and there were no common walls, but he was a big boy, he could handle it.

The hunt for the Volkoff intel had been going better since they build the Processing Centre, as the purpose behind building the computing platform was only partly for the Intersect development, they also needed the super-computing power to enable the level of on-line investigations they were doing to find the best way to bring down Volkoff Industries. Stephen was the primary driver for these investigations, as with direct access to the computer he could manage the data transfers and go through what they were getting faster, but Chuck, Ellie and Sarah were also analysing the intel and directing these investigations to a large degree. On paper at least Stephen, Chuck and Ellie may be more brilliant than Sarah, but she was pretty much up there with them, and the different perspectives that Ellie (as a doctor and scientist) and Sarah (as a con artist and spy) had meant that they could and did recognise aspects of the intel that they were getting that Stephen and Chuck (as engineers and practical scientists) didn't pick up on, so they had to work together to be truly effective. In addition to this, Ellie and Sarah both had the full BI Intersect databases now, so all four of them had access to what was in the various Intersects, which further aided their work. It was this teamwork which was bringing them real developments in the investigation, and hence making the plan to take down Volkoff possible. Sarah was now a full member of the Bartowski Brain Trust, she'd only be missing the name officially for a few more months anyway.

The wearing work schedule and the strain from the nightmares and their all too regular nightly visits were getting to Sarah, so she decided that she needed a break and took a day off to go and see Emma and Molly. She desperately wanted Chuck to go with her, but she didn't think that they could both be away from the work at the same time so she didn't ask him to come. When he asked if he could come with her, and then shot down her arguments about why the team couldn't afford to be without both of them, though, she was ecstatic, so she was happier than she'd been in a while when they hopped into her convertible to head off to her mother's. When they got to Emma's they had a nice surprise, because Bryan was there with her. Between Emma's worries about Sarah and Bryan's worries about Kim and Lenny, they'd both needed a friend to talk to about things, and given the long standing friendship that they'd had for over a quarter of a century and the shared secrets of the spy world and the Council, they could be more open with each other than they could be with anyone else, so they had become quite close. As a result, Bryan was a regular visitor in Emma's home, and he had even become a father figure to Molly (the fact that she reminded him a little of Kim as a little girl didn't hurt at all).

Sarah and Chuck spent most of the day with Emma, Molly and Bryan, both Sarah and Emma shed more than a few tears about what had happened to them (mainly what happened to Sarah) and the opportunities that they'd lost to spend time together as Sarah was growing up, and as an adult. For all the tears and bad memories though, it was a good day for all of them, and it helped Sarah release a lot of the angst that had built up inside of her. When they were talking about the less upsetting things brought up in their stories that they'd shared, Emma mentioned one thing that Sarah had raised, about the contact that she got to help her escape from the Ukraine. When Sarah looked at her with a question in her eyes, Emma smiled and asked if she'd ever found where the analyst who helped her had gotten that contact from? Sarah just shook her head, looking a little confused and Emma smiled again, hooking her thumb at Bryan. At that Sarah turned to Bryan with the same confused look, then her eyes widened as she realised what her mother was saying. Bryan grinned when she finally twigged and said that they couldn't leave her in there, could they?

Sarah asked how Carla had recognised the analyst's name if she hadn't had any dealings with her (the events that saved your life tended to be burnt into your memory, and the BI had recently freshened her recall of those memories as well), so Bryan explained that he'd contacted Frank and told him to expect a call using that name as a reference, and Frank had agreed to get her out for him, he'd pretended it was just another job because that was what Bryan'd asked him to do. When he'd explained what had happened Sarah jumped up to go over to hug him, as that had quite literally saved her from what would have almost certainly been a VERY unpleasant and painful death, and she was feeling rather emotional after the day that they'd had. After she'd kissed him on the cheek and went back to sit with Chuck again, though, her look became speculative and she asked Bryan whether he thought that they could get Frank to join them, Bryan's look matched her's as he considered the idea, saying "He's the sort of person we need on our side, that's for sure." Chuck looked from Sarah to Bryan with a question in his eye, so Sarah said "He should be in the Intersect, Frank Martin." and when Bryan added "British Special Forces", that was what was needed to trigger the flash, in seconds Chuck had all the information about Frank Martin, and he just said "Wow".

Once Chuck had flashed on Frank, Sarah gave him a rather more in depth description of what he'd done and how he'd behaved when he rescued her, and Bryan gave him a more detailed background for Frank and how he knew him as well. Between them they did a pretty good job of explaining his skills, integrity and honour, and Chuck had to agree that this was certainly the sort of man that they were looking for to help them, the sort of man that they'd be proud to stand beside. That left the question of who should approach him, Sarah suggested that Bryan would be best as he knew him, but Bryan's response was that he'd talk to him, but the spiel would be better coming from her, as the new order of the Council. Sarah was a bit hesitant about that, remembering the attraction that they'd had for each other when he got her out of the Ukraine, and not wanting to give Frank the wrong impression now. When Bryan understood what the issue was, he amended his suggestion to be her and Chuck going to talk to Frank, as the ones who were leading the direction of the Council now. They both disagreed with that statement, but Emma agreed with Bryan, most of the new suggestions that were driving what the Council was doing now came from them, so to all intents and purposes they were the Council's leaders now, they still shook their heads at that, but let it go for now. With that it was agreed that Bryan would talk to Frank and providing he was agreeable, they'd fly over in the Falcon to see him and talk through what they were trying to do, in hopes that he'd sign up to help them.

A few days later Bryan called to say that Frank had agreed to talk to them about their proposal, so after a discussion with the Cougar to establish an official absence to cover their trip, they drove out to the airfield where the Falcon was hangared, got changed into their flight gear and took off for the 2 ½ hour trip to Marseilles. When they landed at the airfield there they saw the black Audi parked off the runway, and taxied over to it. Sarah had told Chuck everything about what happened with Frank, including the fact that more may have happened if he wasn't an honourable man who wouldn't take advantage of her vulnerability at the time, and while she had no question in her mind or in her heart that she was with Chuck and nothing would change or threaten that, she was still worried that the situation would be rather awkward. Given that Frank was right there, there wasn't the opportunity to get changed into street clothes before meeting him, so they just removed their helmets and gloves but left the rest of their "flight suits" on. When Sarah introduced Chuck as her fiancé, Frank's terse response was "He isn't the one who abandoned you in the Ukraine, is he?", when she laughed and told him no, she'd met him about a month and a half after that, but he knew him and had an even worse opinion of that guy than she did, Frank smiled and stepped forward to offer Chuck his hand. Seeing that, Sarah knew that the awkwardness she was worried about wouldn't be an issue.

They got their bags out of the storage compartment and locked the Falcon down before Frank took them back to his place to talk. After they'd gotten changed and Frank and Chuck swapped recipes and cooking tips while they made some dinner for the three of them (with a short break for Chuck to remotely open the access ports on the Falcon to allow the refuelling crew to do their job, and then lock them up again), they all sat down and talked. They shared the information on what they were up against, what the Council had done to date and what they wanted to do (with Chuck being up front about his personal reason to want to take Volkoff down, so his mother would be free to come home). Then they explained that they knew just about everything about his background (when he indicated his doubt about that they told him enough to convince him that they in fact did), and Chuck pointed out that Sarah and Bryan had made convincing arguments for wanting him on their side, which brought them to the point of the visit, to ask him to join the Council. Frank wasn't about to jump into this and asked them how they knew Bryan (as Bryan was one of the very few people in the game that he trusted and respected, he'd heard Bryan's endorsement of these two but wanted to know how connected to him they were). He found it interesting to hear that Bryan had known Sarah's mother for over twenty five years (and that they're very close now), and that he'd known Chuck's mother for over thirty five years and had been there when both Chuck and his sister were born, so in a very real way, he was family to both of them. They both also talked about their parents a little, because as they wanted him to join them they were going with full disclosure and being open and honest with him. When Bryan had told him about them and given him their names, he'd checked up on them (as Bryan had fully expected he would), and what was known about Sarah Walker and Charles Carmichael was very impressive, when Chuck told him that his parents were Frost and Orion, well he'd heard those names too in the past, and they'd normally been spoken of in awe.

So the position that Frank was in was that the credentials of everyone he knew of so far in the Council were quite impressive, he trusted and respected Bryan and he had vouched for the group, as well as these two personally, Sarah had earned his trust when he met her about four and a half years before, and that hadn't changed, on top of that what he was seeing of her fiancé made him think he could trust him, too. So with the background on the people of the Council and what they'd shown him about what they were up against and what they were trying to do, Frank just had to make a decision about whether he wanted to throw his hat in the ring with these people, and it was a pretty easy decision for him to make "All right, I'm in."

Once Frank agreed and they made sure that he didn't want to think about it some more before he committed, they talked over logistics a bit and Sarah asked if it'd be OK if she took a shower before she changed back into her flight suit, when he said "Sure", she thanked him with a smile and went off to do so while he talked to Chuck. One of the things that Chuck brought up while they were chatting was the fact that they used code names at all times in communications, and asked him how he felt about "Badger", when Frank just looked at him Chuck clarified "For your code name, do you mind being Badger?", at that Frank laughed and just said "Sure, why not?" Chuck grinned at that and said that they'd set him up with one of their phones that had all the security features that they could fit into them, including voice changing filters and additional encryption and other security features that were automatically engaged when he was connected to another one of their secure phones, he explained that Sarah was Tigress, Bryan was Jackal and he was Wolf, and they'd send him a list of everyone's names and code names when they got his phone set up. Frank nodded and then looked at Chuck asking "Do you love her?" Chuck gave him a confused look so Frank went on "Sarah, do you love her?" There was no doubting the sincerity in Chuck's response when he said "With all my heart, she is my whole world and I'd do anything for her." Frank nodded, saying "I could see that but I had to ask, she's one of a kind that one." Chuck nodded back as he responded in all seriousness "That she is, I couldn't live without her." They stood there in a semi-comfortable silence until Sarah suddenly walked in, looking from one to the other with a question in her eye, but not getting an answer she told Chuck that he better get changed and he nodded, asking Frank whether it was OK if he grabbed a quick shower too? Frank nodded and said "Yeah, sure."

When Chuck had kissed her and left to shower and change Sarah looked at Frank and asked what that was about and he looked a bit nervous as he said "Oh, Chuck was just telling me how much he loves you." The look she gave him left no doubt that she didn't believe for a second that that was the whole story but she let it go, saying "He does, and I love him just as much if not more, he's saved me from this world." Her response made it clear to him that they'd both found their life partners and were happy, and he was happy for them. As he wasn't much better than Casey talking about feelings, though, he quickly changed the subject by looking at her "Flight Suit" with a wry grin, eliciting a raised eyebrow and "What?" from Sarah. "I've seen those suits in videos and it was quite a show, was it you guys that were being recorded?" It was Sarah's turn for a wry grin as she said "Probably, in the start it was just us, there are another four people who generally go into operations with us now, and another four (Chuck's sister and mother and two other women) who sometimes assist, but most of that footage was Chuck and I." He looked thoughtful when he said that she'd gotten even better than he remembered and she nodded, saying that Chuck had gone off for six months of intensive training and came back far better than them, since then he'd been working with the team to bring them closer to his level, and while they would never get up to his level, they were far better than they were when they started. At that she realised that she needed to take the samples to run the DNA tests on Frank, and as Chuck was still squeamish about needles, it'd be better if she got that done before he got back. She got the gear out, along with a tablet which had the data retention tests stored on it, and had Frank do the tests as she was taking the samples from him.

Chuck came back as she was packing away the samples and gear (leading to a wry grin from Frank when he realised how much longer it took for Chuck to shower and change than it did Sarah, the beautiful woman is the one who's supposed to take forever) and he went a little pale, but turned to pull the secure phones out of his bag and politely asked Frank for his phone. Frank handed the phone over cautiously and watched as Chuck went through the phones he had with him until he found one that was as close a match as possible to the model that Frank handed him, before proceeding to clone Frank's phone and transfer what was on it across to the phone he'd selected, finally swapping the SIM over and handing it to Frank. Frank turned it over in his hand as he looked at it, then went into the phone to look for what he'd had on his phone before, in weight and appearance the phone was very similar, and most of the interfaces were the same as his old phone had, so he had no trouble accessing everything he'd had on his other phone. Once he was happy with that, Chuck ran him through the highlights of the additional features of this phone, one of the first being to show him the app that told him about everything the phone could do and how to use the various features. While Frank thought it was weird for a phone to have high end bug scanners, code crackers and a powerful taser built into it, he could see how those features and the others he was shown could come in quite handy.

When they'd gotten Frank set up with the basics, he drove them back to the airfield where they said their goodbyes and took off. Chuck had no issues with the hug and kiss on the cheek that Sarah gave Frank, and he shook his hand and gave him a hug, too. When Chuck boosted Sarah into the front cockpit of the Falcon with a kiss before climbing into the rear cockpit Frank walked over to ask "Weren't you in the driver's seat when you arrived Chuck?" He laughed, saying "Yeah, and that's why she's insisting on having the driver's seat on the way back, there's no way she'd let me drive her everywhere, hell, I'm lucky if she lets me to drive at all." Sarah's voice came back from the front cockpit as she adjusted the harness and seat to fit her properly, telling him "Keep it up, just remember that I know where the eject button for your seat is." The laughing response of "Sorry Honey, I love you." was met with a laugh and "I love you too, you dork." At that Frank grinned and with a squeeze on the arm for both of them he wished them a good flight and got out of the way. As soon as he was clear Sarah started the engines (they'd been running through the checklists while they were talking) to warm them up, and they finished adjusting everything and running the last of the checklists. When they were ready they waved to Frank and closed the canopies as she taxied down to the end of the runway and turned the Falcon around to line it up for take off, before running up the engines and letting her fly. As soon as they were off the deck she retracted the undercarriage and did a perfect 360 degree roll before they'd crossed the end of the runway. Frank laughed at that and waved before he got into his Audi to drive home.

By the time they got back to LA it was almost dawn, Chuck hopped out to open the hangar and drive Sarah's car out to make room to put the Falcon away and they changed back into their street clothes, stashing the bags with their Flight Suits in the storage compartment before locking up the hangar and hopping into Sarah's car to drive home. The official reason that had been set up to explain their absence had them away for most of the day, so after they went for the morning "run" with the others and gave Ellie Frank's samples to have tested, they had a shower and crawled into bed. While they were tired, they didn't miss the chance to make love before they went to sleep, because with their luck they had no way of knowing who'd be in their bed with them when they woke up. Their luck was holding out, though, because when they woke up around lunch time they were still alone, so after a quick lunch they spent the afternoon luxuriating in each other and what they had together. By the time the others got home from the office they were both sated and happy, it was the best day that they'd had in what seemed like forever.

When they others got home they had dinner and went through the nightly training session with them, filling them in on what happened with Frank and getting caught up on the events of the day in their various worlds (Hunter, Government and Council). Later that night they were glad that they'd had the day to themselves, as Carina turned up in tears again about half an hour after they all broke up to go to bed. They couldn't begrudge her that, as she'd been put through as much as the rest of them put together, if not more, but that didn't lessen their relief that they'd had the day for them.

The next day it was back to their regular schedule, exercise, deliver for Hunter Security's clients, respond to government requests for their "official" job and do investigations and analysis for the Council. They also had an infiltration mission for their "real" job, so Chuck had all the usual worries about Sarah being exposed to danger (and pervs) when they went in. They'd had all her outfits remade with armourcloth to give her some protection, but far too much of her was exposed in those outfits for that to offer her any real protection, so the best he could do was to ensure that she'd be behind him if any shooting started, so that the rather more substantial armour he was wearing from the neck down under his suit could be used to protect them both. The mission went off without a hitch or gunplay, and they were home before midnight, so that was a win in their books.

Over the coming weeks they did all their usual work, and in the meantime they did what they could to bring Frank up to speed on the Council and their practices. Chuck and Sarah had taken Frank's measurements and Bryan and Ellie flew over with the Valkyrie (Ellie used the skillset in the BI to serve as co-pilot), carrying the gear to get him set up (including one of the Hunter "minivans"). Ellie put him through a thorough examination, running him through a battery of physiological and neurological tests to get a very clear picture of what shape he was in, every aspect of him, and they used the scanners built into the Valkyrie's shower to get the detailed mapping of his entire body they needed to enable them to make up a set of tactical suits for him. Another thing Ellie did was talk him through the benefits and the (very few) possible downsides of the Bartowski Intersect and when he'd agreed to go forward, uploaded him with the BI-Lite version, so that when they left he was set up with most of the gear that he'd need (including an armoured vehicle such as he'd never seen and a collection of suits tailored to fit him that had light armour built into them, plus armourcloth shirts etc along with an array of weapons and other Hunter gear), and the BI-Lite to help beef up his system against things such as knife wounds and bullet wounds. When they were ready, Bryan would bring some of Frank's tactical suits back over in the Falcon (because while Chuck, Sarah and Casey were the primary pilots for the group, they had busier schedules than most of them) and assist him with any issues he may have.

Throughout the Volkoff exercise (as they called it), they had been in contact with Mary whenever they needed clarification or inside assistance with anything. They knew that this wasn't going to be a simple take down, Mary had been stuck there with Volkoff for over twenty years, and the CIA and NSA had been searching for or building evidence on Volkoff for that long, too. With the Bartowski Brain Trust driving their investigation, they'd managed to get far further than the government investigations had in just over a year, and a plan was shaping up in Chuck's head, even though he hadn't shared this with anyone but Sarah as yet. Part of what they'd gotten Mary to do was load various pieces of software that they'd written and sent her onto the Volkoff network, this software gave them total access to the Volkoff computer systems and they were mining it for anything that they could find to help them bring Volkoff Industries down. They were still searching outside of Volkoff's network for information about associations and access points that they could use in the exercise, and they had numerous missions to bug the facilities of Volkoff's associates to collect intel that they couldn't get on-line. Some of those missions were to bug Volkoff facilities where Mary couldn't do so without endangering or exposing herself.

They hadn't forgotten about Hartley Winterbottom though, the original plan to get Agent X/Alexei Volkoff out of Hartley's head and bring him home was still close to Stephen's heart (not so much for Mary any more though after twenty odd years of watching him be an amoral psychopathic monster who was constantly chasing her as Alexei Volkoff), so Stephen, Chuck and Ellie were working on the side to create a customised version of the BI-Lite that would definitely wipe out/overwrite the Agent X program and bring Hartley back, so that they could extract him along with Mary.

Much of what they were working on into the early hours of the morning every night was analysing the intel from all the on-line and surveillance feeds and determining whether what they had was to be discarded, stored for future use or whether planning had to be done to act on what they got from the given intel. As well as Team Bartowski working on it when they could, Stephen, Emma and Bryan were working on it nearly full time and the others were putting in what time they could, as there was a mountain of intel to go through.

What with planning to take down a multi-national criminal empire with a group that totalled just fifteen people, it was forgivable that they sometimes forgot that they had something else to plan, their wedding. The one person who wasn't about to let them forget that, though, was Ellie. The only thing that they had mapped out in their minds to their satisfaction and agreed was the wedding party itself, Ellie was going to be the Maid of Honour, with Carina and Zondra as the bridesmaids, Casey would be the Best Man, with Bryan and Frank as the grooms-men (while Bryan would be doing double duty and giving away the bride as well), and Molly was the flower girl. For everything else, they just wanted a small, private ceremony, not necessarily in a church as neither of them was particularly religious (even though Emma had originally brought her little Sammie as a good, God loving girl, that had finished when her father took her away), all that really mattered to them was that the people that they loved were there with them to witness the event (though they had been informed that there was one person who had requested to be there to celebrate the event with them who would add to the pomp and ceremony due to the unavoidable protective detail and security).

Luckily Ellie was happy to do all the running around, and Casey agreed to help her (after all he had experience with this when he was roped into doing much of the work for Ellie's actual wedding), as did Carina and Zondra. Of course, even with Ellie running everything, she had to keep coming to Chuck and Sarah (mainly Sarah) to ask whether they were happy with what she'd come up with and was driving them crazy much of the time. A major break through came when Ellie found a gorgeous little chapel down by the seaside inside an estate (so the site was private and could be secured), and managed to get agreement for them to use it. When Ellie showed them the pictures, Sarah fell in love with it (well, they both did, but all Chuck cared about was that Sarah was happy), so they locked it in, and that allowed the rest of the planning to be done around the site. When they'd agreed to the inclusion of their distinguished guest and his wife, that meant locking in a date in as well, to allow his security people to make the necessary arrangements. This in turn meant that they either had to start the countdown for the take down of Volkoff Industries or take the risk of adding complications to getting Mary out if she was discovered when she slipped away to attend her son's wedding, that was a question that kept them up for more than a few nights.

Sarah started panicking when she realised that she didn't know whether Sarah Walker was actually her legal name, or it was just a cover name that she'd been using since she was seventeen. They searched all the records and couldn't find any evidence of it, but Chuck finally managed to calm her down by convincing her that she could make it her legal name by registering it as a legal change of name, he knew a guy who had to do that when he was getting his government clearance paperwork processed, his mother'd had his name changed when she got remarried after his dad died, and then he had it legally changed back to his real name after she died, but when he tried to get the legal transcripts to use when he started getting the paperwork together for the clearance process, there was no record of him anywhere in the system, so he had to lodge a THIRD change of name, listing name at birth, name currently used and requested names as identical names and the reason as "government lost my records", but it went through and it was legal, so that's all she had to do, with that she calmed down and they contacted their lawyers to get it done, so that she was legally listed as Sarah Lisa Walker by the time their wedding day came around.

There were many times through the wedding planning process that Sarah felt like a total failure as a bride, she couldn't understand how everyone else seemed to be getting excited about the details of the wedding, but she wasn't. All she cared about was that she was marrying Chuck, and he said that that was all he cared about as well, but everyone else was running around in a tizzy about the details, Ellie, Carina, even Casey, what the fuck was up with that? One of the big milestones was achieved one day though when she was having lunch with her mother. Ellie kept asking her what she wanted for a wedding dress and she was getting frustrated because she couldn't find a single dress that she didn't hate. In a way, that was a large part of the reason she'd called her mother for lunch, to get away from all of that. She couldn't get a parking spot anywhere near the restaurant, so they had to walk several blocks back to her car afterwards. Maybe it was because she had been hurrying to meet her Mom there (she'd gotten a taxi to the restaurant), or because she was worked up, or maybe she just went back a different way, but she was certain that she hadn't seen the little hole in the wall dress shop on that side street on her way to the restaurant, but when she saw the dress in the window on the way back she just stopped. It was perfect, simple, elegant, refined, exactly what she'd had in the back of her mind but couldn't find anywhere. It didn't take Emma much prompting to get her to go in and take a closer look, and when she tried it on it was a perfect fit. If that wasn't a sign she didn't know what was, so she bought it right there on the spot. Emma had a hard time not laughing because Sarah couldn't get the smile off her face after that, she was like a little kid at Christmas when Santa had REALLY came through for them.

With the chapel and wedding dress locked in, the rest of the details were rather easier to pull together, as they just had to work with them, perfect.


	12. Closing In

**No rights to any characters portrayed.**

Before they made a decision about pushing the schedule to take down Volkoff, they tried to ramp up the investigation in hope that they could get the intel to give them good enough odds to do so. The problem was that they were already stretched thin and trying to work harder was pushing most of them too much.

As they waded through the intel for Volkoff Industries, it became obvious that a) they needed more resources, and b) they weren't likely to be able push the take down schedule, so they talked to Chuck's mother about whether she thought the risk was too great for her to attend the wedding. Her reaction was not particularly reserved, as she went off, saying that she'd missed one child's wedding, she wasn't about to miss her son's, especially as he was marrying one of her best friends' daughter and it looked like a match made in heaven. On that basis, they set things in motion for her to be off-line on a mission in Eastern Europe for a few days around the given date, and Bryan could pick her up with a Falcon and return her to the area after the wedding, hopefully Volkoff and co would be none the wiser about her being missing for a day or two.

In the meantime, they worked with the Cougar on the best way to engineer leaks of enough strategic information to support NSA, SAD, Special Forces or Seal strike teams being allocated to assist in the take down. They agreed what paths would be used to "leak" the information to NSA or CIA officials to allow the agencies to be engaged without realising that they were being manipulated. The activity was, of course, made more complicated due to the need for them to apply a suitable level of redundancy in case the officials receiving the intel were turned or corrupt and did not pass it up the line, and that redundancy had to appear natural and un-suspicious.

After listening for a while to Ellie in an ever more heated exchange about changes to the wedding that their distinguished guest's aides and security people were demanding and the threats that they were making to her when she refused to buckle to those demands, Chuck got aggravated and took the phone off her, identifying himself before proceeding to tell them in no uncertain terms that the need for any further discussion was over because the distinguished guest would no longer be attending their wedding, and promptly hung up. Of course Chuck's action kicked off an escalating series of events and threats, but these just strengthened his resolve to stand by his decision. Eventually, though, Chuck had a discussion with the man himself and his invitation was reinstated after it was agreed that there would be no changes to the planned event, and any required security would be kept to minimal visibility and impact, with a maximum of four low key protective personnel in sight of the event, of which at most two would be in the group itself, and Ellie received an apology from the man for what she'd been put through, along with a stern promise that the matter would be addressed. There was also a change of contacts, in that Ellie only dealt with the man's wife from that point to discuss any arrangements, to ensure that they didn't have any repeat of the previous problems. In the process of these discussions, the date for the wedding was pushed back a couple of months.

With the strike teams that they would be getting from the various agencies and branches of the military, Chuck's tentative plan now had a chance to work, so he shared it with the rest of the Council once it had been fleshed out with the intel that they'd put together up to that point. One aspect of the plan that he didn't like was that they'd need to be separated, with their ten experienced field operatives each leading separate operations around the globe (and Ellie would be leading one of those up to the point that they reached Mary and she took over), but the strikes would have to be pretty much simultaneous for the plan to work, and three quarters of them would be hopping around leading additional strikes on top of their initial ones. (Chuck had arranged for an additional five Falcons to be constructed and brought on-line over the past year, so that they wouldn't be restricted to two fast transports if they had to face an operation of this scale. It also meant that more of them would have an escape mechanism available if things went pear shaped for the group.) With the experienced field op members of the team running the operations on the ground, that left Stephen and Emma to oversee the logistics for the operation, with Josie and Alex assisting them. There were worries about Diane and Roan's rusty field experience putting them at risk, so they'd be allocated the "softest" targets to handle.

In the middle of this, the old couple living in the apartment next to Casey's left to go to a retirement village, so they snapped it up under Hunter Security's name as soon as it came on the market. This meant that they now had the whole block of four apartments under their control and could lock down the environment. One of the first things they did was to add security gates to all the courtyard openings (along with a lot of less obvious security measures). They left the apartment sitting empty for some time while they remodelled it (adding the same connecting door as there was between the other pair as part of the job), and under the guise of that remodelling and doing landscaping around the apartment complex, they also had a collection of bunkers built underneath the apartments with access from all four of them, plus adding a few extra escape routes and hidden secure garages behind the new retaining walls front and rear. Removing the extra dirt and rubble that was excavated for the bunkers in secret in the early hours of the morning was a problem (especially keeping it from the intelligence agencies), but the issue was alleviated partly by adding the retaining walls across the front and rear and then extending the garden areas/lawn out to the walls, and also utilising a process which converted the excavated material into the highly compressed/dense material used to create the thick walls, ceiling and floors of the bunkers, (as well as the retaining walls front and rear), between them the two measures managed to use up a reasonable portion of the material removed, and even with the secrecy required it went fairly well.

The construction of the bunkers, with walls, ceilings and floors 1 – 1.5 metres thick of very dense material meant that they had essentially created an underground fortress, even the "garage doors" were made of swivelling slabs 1.2M thick, 4.2M high and 9.5M long of the same material, with 60CM diameter locking bars on both sides and across the bottom to prevent them being forced open and the various bunkers (including the "garage" areas and access points to apartments upstairs) could be sealed off from each other by 1M thick slabs of the same material that slid across to block the passageways between them. The mechanism used to create the wall/ceiling/floor material from the excavated material was initially created (via Stephen's mad inventor connections) as a more effective way of hiding the secret operation, but it also created a far more secure facility than traditional materials would have done. Of course, they had to hijack large amounts of power off the grid to run the equipment, but with Stephen and Chuck on the team they managed to keep redirecting any efforts to locate the drain by altering the records in the power systems. The official plan was that Ellie would move into that apartment when it was ready.

As soon as the relevant areas of the bunker were to the point of being usable, they moved all their planning and training sessions down there (as the two generally went hand in hand for the team), which meant that they spent quite a bit of time down there. Down the track there'd be another super-computer like the one in Stephen's bunker, high tech shooting range, everything that they thought they might need in their operations centre, but for now a few computers with plenty of large, high-res displays, some exercise gear and the mats for the sparring areas were all they needed to make do.

Part of the preparations was to time the electronic stripping away of Volkoff Industries' assets with the physical strikes against them, to prevent both giving warning, and stopping anyone from spiriting funds or assets away once the attacks started, that was a big part of Stephen's responsibility, Chuck could assist him in all the planning for the activity, but he would be too busy running the strike teams on the day to assist with its execution.

As they got closer to the day of the take down, things got more hectic, as new intel coming in kept changing the parameters of the plan, but they had the equipment and transport ready and all the strike teams were on standby (over twenty of them to cover the primary sites that had to be hit within a few hours of each other at most). It was agreed that all of the council team would remain anonymous for the entire duration of the exercise, fully buttoned up inside their tactical armour suits. The only exception to that would be Mary up to the point when Ellie reached her, as Ellie would be taking her suit and gear to her, but the plan was that only Ellie would see her before she suited up.

It was going to be easiest for Diane and Roan, as they each had only one site to take down, against the three each that the rest did, and they had the softest ones to handle. Ellie had to run one strike up to the point where she reached Mary and handed over to her, after that she would be flying her mother around and assisting on the logistics side from the Valkyrie, she would also be babysitting Hartley in the Valkyrie for the duration as they'd be forcing the upload of the modified BI-Lite on Alexei Volkoff to wipe out Agent X and taking Hartley out with them. Frank had to complete his first site and then be picked up to assist Mary on her next two. Mary would have an assist on all three of her's and she had Ellie as her pilot so she had time to organise things with her next teams on the way. It would be hardest for Chuck, Sarah, Casey, Bryan, Carina, and Zondra as they'd be alone. They had to take down their sites, jump into their Falcons and fly to the next site themselves, and somehow manage to organise things with the next team as they did so, at least the Falcons were small enough for them to drop them down close to the attack site on VTOL and save a bit of time there, Ellie wouldn't be able to get the Valkyrie as close most of the time.

For the ones who had three sites to take down, they HAD to handle each strike as a blitzkrieg, blast their way in, flag any personnel, equipment or intel that had to be captured on the way through to the team and annihilate any opposition before leaving the site in the hands of the strike team and running off to fly to the next site. This was why constant adjustments were having to be made to the plans, as every new piece of intel discovered identified a new resource that had to be captured or a new threat that had to be handled (or both), which meant that the plans had to be adjusted to handle the new elements.

Then they had the other worrying angle, in that they didn't know whether these strike teams were going to turn on them, this was the third major organisation that the team had taken down, and every one of them had moles throughout the government organisations that they were depending on to provide the manpower to pull this operation off. The others were just praying that nothing happened to either Chuck or Sarah, it would be terrible if something happened to any of them, but if anything happened to either of them the survivor would bring down Armageddon on anyone and everyone that they held responsible for it, countries could be destroyed.

When the day came, it was all or nothing, Chuck, Sarah and Casey were getting updates from Stephen, Emma and Ellie about how the other teams were going in real time, but they just filed the information away until they had time to process it (unless it was about Sarah for Chuck or vice versa). The fighting was fierce and they were forced to kill far too many for their consciences to cope with, so as a protection method, their brains for the most part locked that away for the moment, though it would come back to hit them later, there was little doubt of that. Overall, on average they lost about a quarter of their teams in the strikes, but Chuck, Sarah and Casey had the most important, and therefore most dangerous, sites and lost over half their teams on their strikes. Not all of those losses were from enemy fire though, as compromised soldiers had been planted on the teams for the critical sites, so all three of them were shot in the back numerous times (the "turned" soldiers had no way of knowing that the tac suits were impervious to small arms fire), which in turn required them to take out the traitors and then prove to the remainder of the team what had happened. Luckily with the tac suits they DID have eyes in the back of their heads, and those eyes recorded what they saw, so they had video evidence to convince the others with. Once they'd convinced the team they'd go on to finish the take down of the site.

On Chuck's last site, the turned members of the team must have been getting desperate, because when shooting him did no good, they upped the ante. When Chuck saw the RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) being fired at him, he got out of the way without too much difficulty, but when it exploded he discovered that the building had been mined to self destruct, and most of the charges must have been set up to go off in a chain reaction once the initial charges went off, because the RPG explosion set them off, bringing the building down. When the first charges went off, Chuck started moving for the outside windows, as he did so he spotted the cables of a window washers' scaffold and headed for them (he was five floors up, jumping out the window wouldn't have put him in much better a position than staying inside and being crushed, but initially he was prepared to take his chance with a cleaner/quicker death until he saw the cables). He shot the window out just before he reached it and leapt through, grabbing the cable as he passed and sliding down it with increasing velocity as he did so. He didn't try to do too much to brake his descent at first because a) he wanted to get down and away from the collapsing building, and b) he knew that his suit's gloves wouldn't last long when he did, so he was trying to keep them for when it mattered. As luck would have it, the scaffold was three stories below him, he started griping the cable to brake his fall a floor above the scaffold, letting go just before he reached it and then grabbing the rope he'd seen hanging below it as he passed, then used whatever the gloves had left to scrub what velocity he could off on the rope as he swung out before letting go. In the end he only had about 6M to drop, rolling on landing and trotting further out until he was fairly sure that he was out of the way of any falling debris before he stopped and turned back to watch it come down. He called for another team to come in as he watched, and when they'd sifted through the rubble, the consensus was that he was the only one who'd gotten out of the building alive. Even though he wasn't responsible, the over a hundred deaths from that building weighed heavier on his conscience than the others he'd shot and killed that day.

When the replacement team arrived to take over the effort of sifting through the rubble for survivors or intel, Chuck got into the Falcon and headed home. The others had been right about what would happen if Chuck or Sarah were hurt or killed, as Sarah was on the verge of going on a rampage, Chuck managed to calm her down because a) he was OK, and b) they had no way of finding out who set that team onto him now, eventually they settled into a detente on the matter, not the best solution perhaps with their up-coming marriage but it was the best they could do for now.

While the primary sites had been taken out and Volkoff Industries' back was broken on that day, there were other Volkoff sites that were still putting up resistance, so quite a bit of "cleaning up" had to be done. For the mop up operations, they used the proven strike teams from the big push, but they were going in as a team now, so they had each other's backs. They also had the time to research each site and do proper planning, so hopefully they wouldn't be caught in any more exploding buildings.

The sound that they least expected to hear in the middle of a battle was a giggle, but even with the voice changing filters they used on their coms links, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that that was what they'd heard. Given that she was pretty sure the two women in the "van" (the mobile command centres were too big to be called that, really) wouldn't have giggled while their team mates were in the middle of the battle, in Carina's mind that only left one person, so (desperately hoping that something terrible hadn't happened and she'd cracked) she asked "Care to share Sis?" Sarah responded after a brief delay, and when she started with "Sorry", Carina knew that the delay was because she'd just realised what would be going through Carina's head at the giggle. "Sorry, I was just watching Chuck and was reminded that my nerd is a bad ass spy, it's pretty hot really." There was a chorus of groans and one chuckle (obviously from Ellie) at that, and just then a short video clip popped up on their Augmented Reality (AR) displays of Chuck taking out two guys with blindingly fast kicks to the head before hooking his leg around the neck of a third to take him down (permanently by the looks of it), all the while taking targets out with inhuman speed and accuracy simultaneously with the pistols he had in each hand. Without thinking, Zondra said "That is kinda hot, actually." in a speculative voice but kicked herself as soon as she realised that she'd said that out loud because Sarah had been reacting badly to anything like that lately, she just hoped that Chuck's response of "And apparently, my bad ass spy is a nerd, too." with a chuckle would be enough to take Sarah's mind off her comment. Her luck wasn't that good, of course, and the look that Sarah gave her when she stepped into the "van", well she was glad the term "if looks could kill" was an empty threat. Ellie had heard the muttered comment and was expecting Sarah's reaction as much as Zondra was, so she was waiting at the door when Sarah came in.

When Sarah looked at Zondra, Ellie grasped her arm and gently pulled her soon to be sister-in-law in the other direction for a quiet chat, telling her that her irrational jealousy was getting out of hand, and jokingly asked her whether she was sure she wasn't pregnant? The way Sarah's head whipped around and the scared look in her eye certainly answered THAT question. Ellie turned them away from the others and asked in a whisper whether she'd told Chuck yet, and when she miserably shook her head Ellie asked "Why?" Sarah's barely audible response was that she didn't know whether he'd want it, or want her when he found out. Ellie sighed and gently but firmly pulled her face up to look at her, motioning Chuck to stay back behind her back as he started towards them at the same time. She looked Sarah in the eye and whispered to her "You're being an idiot, I called it irrational jealousy because you mean the world to Chuck and he'd never ever stray now that you're committed to each other, I know the man that I raised well enough to know that, and I also know that when you tell him about the baby he's going to be over the moon, so much so that he'll drive you around the bend by being even more caring and considerate and loving than he was before." Sarah snorted, saying that that wasn't possible and Ellie smiled, saying "Oh it is, just you wait." She made sure she had Sarah's attention when she told her "The baby will only make things better for you, sure, it would create issues with being a spy, but as far as your relationship goes it will draw you together even more." Sarah's expression had turned hopeful as she asked "Are you sure?" and Ellie smiled as she said "Absolutely!" and pulled her into a hug, kissing her on the cheek before moving to her "little" brother standing anxiously a little way away and telling him to go talk to his wife, with a nudge in her direction. She just smiled to herself when she heard the joyous noises behind her soon after that.

Of course there was a fall out from this, once the initial euphoria subsided and when Chuck stopped to think that Sarah was putting herself in danger when she knew she was pregnant he was rather upset. Sarah assured him that she'd only realised that something was up when she blew up at him after he'd almost died, which made her do the math and go out to get the pregnancy tests. When they all came up positive, she was trying to work out how to tell him, but hadn't come up with anything before it came out in the van. While he trusted her, he was a little sceptical until she showed him the opened boxes in the bin in the bathroom, which proved that it hadn't been more than a week, and he apologised. Given that they were both very emotional at that point, she gladly accepted his apology and asked that they just move on with the important things. Of course, she wasn't happy when he started trying to wrap her up in cotton wool and insisted that she pull mostly support roles in the van from that point, obviously Ellie knew her little brother all too well.

Their wedding day was only a week after that, of course Sarah had panicked that the wedding dress wouldn't fit now because she was pregnant, but Ellie laughed at her and suggested that she just try it on, and it was fine, Ellie also did the proper tests and confirmed that she was, in deed, pregnant.

The day dawned to clear blue skies with fluffy white clouds, everyone important was there, including Chuck's mother, and everything was set. With them being them though, they couldn't have everything their way of course, but the fly in the ointment that day was a doozy. Casey was monitoring the security feeds around the apartment block while he was getting ready when he saw the figure loitering out front, trying to work out how to get in. When he zoomed in and recognised who it was he swore and grabbed his gun, cursing as he stormed out of his apartment to deal with the threat. Carina was in the courtyard and stopped him, demanding to know what was going on, which checked him enough to look at Ellie's apartment before turning away to whisper at her "Your father is out front right now, I've got to get rid of him before he destroys Walker's wedding." Carina was obviously floored by this news, but held a hand up to make Casey stay while she gathered himself, then told him to WAIT while she got her gun and came with him. Casey nodded and she ran inside, returning in less than thirty seconds, stuffing her pistol into the back of the waistband of her yoga pants.

As they came down the stairs and out of the security gate, Jack decided that he could bluff his way through this, so he tried to act surprised when he saw them. "Cop Face, what are you going here? I just came to see my daughter, is she here?" He looked Carina up and down with a smirk and asked "And who might you be, lovely lady?" That gave Carina the opening she wanted and she pouted, asking "Don't you recognise me Daddy?" before she took him out with a roundhouse kick to the face. Casey picked him up and hauled him to his minivan to toss him in the back, but just before he jumped in himself he looked up at the windows of Chuck and Sarah's apartment to see Chuck watching them. He couldn't read Chuck's expression from there, but he saw him give a "Get him out of here!" motion with his head, at which Casey nodded and got in. Carina looked at him when he got in and he motioned up to the apartment, at Chuck's nod when she looked up she just said "Let's go". They had to dump her father in a cell in Castle and get back in time to make it to the wedding, Casey was the best man, he needed to be there.

Half an hour later they were back, cutting things close but they could make it work. Casey went to have a quick shower and get dressed while Carina ran to get her hair and makeup done in Ellie's apartment (where she was heading when she ran into Casey) Ellie looked at her when she came in but she just frowned and shook her head, Sarah was in the room and nervous, luckily too nervous to pick up on what was going on around her at that moment. When Casey came into his apartment, Chuck looked at him and Casey said "He's in Castle, that'll hold him until we're done." At that Chuck just nodded as he said "Thanks" and poured Johnnie Walker Blue into a couple of tumblers, handing one to Casey as he raised the other to him in a toast. After he'd taken a sip he looked back at the bottle and grinned, saying "I can't believe that we never used that!" Casey looked at him, confused, and he grinned again as he waved at the bottle saying "The perfect cover name, you could have been Johnnie Walker, Sarah's Dad." Casey groaned good naturedly, the pun was terrible but at least the kid's spirits were up, it was his wedding day after all.

While it was traditional for the groom to arrive before the bride, they all travelled to the estate where the chapel was in a convoy of Hunter minivans, all set to sparkling white for the occasion. Casey was in the lead car and ensured that they were all waved through the checkpoint at the gate without delay, and they drove straight up to the marquees that had been set up for them. Though Chuck wanted to kiss her before he went to take his position, Sarah was stressing about everything and he didn't want to risk messing up her hair or makeup so he just hugged her and went.

When he took his position, he had to smile at the picture in front of him, the Maid of Honour and bridesmaids were all within an inch each other's height (as would be the bride), while on the groom's side, he, the Best Man and the groomsmen were also within an inch or two in height, except for Frank, who was about four inches shorter, so he was standing out on the end, with a gap where Bryan would stand once he'd walked Sarah up the aisle. While he was waiting, he looked at his parents and smiled, so happy that they'd gotten his mother out of the situation she'd been in for so long, and that she was here with them today, as he looked back Ellie caught his eye and smiled back at him, then the bridal march music started.

The ceremony was simple but emotional for all concerned, a small cloud crossed Carina's, Casey's and Chuck's faces as Bryan walked Sarah up the aisle, because a brief doubt crossed their minds, but they knew that Jack would have just been there to try and run some angle on Sarah, and his daughters in particular knew how much he really cared about them or anyone else. Carina and Casey were prepared to tell Sarah that they'd done it without Chuck's knowledge, especially as that was what exactly they were doing before he saw them. Aside from that, it was the beautiful and joyous occasion that it was meant to be.

The reception was out on the lawns in front of the chapel, looking out over the ocean. The white cloud dotted brilliant blue sky above, lush green grass all about, white tables around the parquet dance floor that had been laid down for the occasion and the beautiful little chapel behind them made for a stunning image. As the bride and groom circulated through their family and guests, it was amusing to their distinguished guest to watch and note that they came to see him and his wife only AFTER they'd spent time with their family and close friends, it had been a very long time since he'd been put in his place, his wife smiled and told him that it was a lesson that he needed when she read his amusement.

When they did get to the President and the First Lady, Chuck and Sarah were respectful as they greeted them, the President kissed the bride and the First Lady surprised them when she insisted on kissing the groom, and thanking him for being the first person in a very long time to remind her husband that he was a man, not a god, and that his wishes didn't overrule everyone else's. Chuck was a bit bemused by that and the First Lady smiled at Sarah, saying "He doesn't know how special, how truly unique he is, does he?" Sarah smiled back as she answered "No, he doesn't, but I intend to spend the rest of my life showing him."

The President decided to take pity on Chuck as he obviously wasn't getting what their wives were saying. He explained that when the General first advised him that he and Sarah were getting married, he'd wanted to honour them for all that they'd done for the country, and the world for that matter. He'd been reading the incredible things that he and his team had been doing for the past five years and wanted to meet the people who had achieved such things, to thank them personally for things that they could never be recognised publicly for, he was also enough of a romantic to be heart warmed by the fact that, in the midst of the moral turpitude of the world of the "intelligence" communities, the two of them had not only continually done their best to do the right thing, they'd managed to fall in love.

He smiled as he said that it was the withdrawal of his invitation to the wedding that really caught his eye, though. When he was told that Chuck had informed his staff that there would be no further discussion because the President's invitation was withdrawn, so arrangements for him were no longer necessary, at first he was angry, who was this man who summarily dismissed the great honour that his President was granting him? It was his wife (smiling at her) who convinced him to get his head out of his arse and think about the fact that it was their wedding, and aside from that, something must have happened to cause him to withdraw the invitation, so he'd demanded transcripts of all the communications that had occurred in regard to the wedding, and talked to the General who had informed him (with some pride, he noted) how important his family was to Chuck, and how it was almost impossible to make him put aside his integrity and change his mind once he was convinced that what he was doing was the right thing to do.

After a moment to let that sink in, he explained that it was after he'd talked to the General that he'd gotten her to arrange the discussion with him to allow him to apologise for what had happened, and try to sort things out so that he and his wife could attend the wedding, because by that stage he REALLY wanted to meet him and his wife. He looked around and said that it would have been a crime to change this wedding from what it was, because it was beautiful, he was glad that it had gone ahead the way that they'd wanted, and even more so that he'd been allowed to share it with them. Looking back at Chuck he said "What our wives were trying to say is that none of us have ever seen a man who is so determined to do what's right, and to make his loved ones happy, that he'd stand up to anything, even the United States government, to do the right thing by them. I can name plenty of powerful nations who would give in to demands from my administration before they'd stand by their guns, but you, one man, weighed what your loved ones wanted against what the government wanted and just told me to get lost, because they were more important, that's what makes you so special." Chuck looked a bit confused at that, leading to Sarah beaming and pulling him in to kiss him, chastely but thoroughly before turning back to the President and his wife with the same beaming smile and saying "That's my Chuck, he IS special." Chuck blushed as the first couple laughed good naturedly at them.

The chatted together for a while longer, and the President noted that, for all of being a lovestruck new husband, Chuck would not discuss anything remotely sensitive outside where they may be monitored, then the dancing started and after the couple's dance, the President danced with Sarah while Chuck danced with the First Lady.

When the reception was drew to a close, everyone expected Chuck and Sarah to head off by car, but after they'd gone to the marquee to change into their casual "going away" clothes (Sarah looking as stunning as ever, of course), they surprised everyone by heading down towards the ocean. In the lower area beside the sea cliff, there were seven sleek, sparkling white aircraft that everyone was sure weren't there before, a large one (nearly 70M long) in the middle, and six smaller ones around 17M long beside it. Chuck and Sarah waved as they boarded the biggest plane and then about 10 minutes later, it and the other six took off vertically together in formation, staying in that formation (three smaller planes trailing away back from the wingtip on each side in an arrow formation) as they went away, and they were well into supersonic and still accelerating when they disappeared from sight.

There was a flurry of activity on the radios as the security forces around the wedding site were frantically trying to organise fighter jets to chase the planes before they were told to stand down. The President turned back to the General (well, General Diane Beckman as there were a few generals attending the wedding) and asked her what the hell that was? He'd read the descriptions of the supersonic transports being used by the group that ran the take down of Volkoff Industries, and if the planes he just saw weren't them, they came from the same stable. The father of the groom (also known as Orion, the President remembered) stepped forward to tell him that they were the planes that he'd built for the family's use, but he seemed to have forgotten where all the plans and design specs had gone to, the old noggin wasn't what it used to be. Looking him in the eye, the President realised that Chuck wasn't the only one in the family who wouldn't back down, but then he looked at Chuck's mother (Frost, the CIA deep cover agent who'd only just been released after over twenty years when they took down Volkoff Industries), and his sister, who'd had some of his senior aides and security people in tears when they were arguing over the wedding arrangements, and amended that thought, apparently none of the Bartowski family backed down. At that point he just thanked his lucky stars that they were too honest to go into politics, they were an unstoppable force.

He let the matter go, but caught General Beckman's eye, making sure she understood that they would be having a VERY serious discussion at the first opportunity about what was going on, because she was obviously part of it.

**A/N: Unless I have a change of heart, or I start getting interest in the story, this is probably where it will end. I had planned on continuing but only one person seems to be following it now. I had a few ideas on how to progress it, but they probably won't come out now unless one of the changes above happen.**


	13. Honeymoon

**Guess I'm still just mainly writing for Wilf and myself, plus a couple of others, I do appreciate your support to date.**

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

As soon as they were out of sight, Sarah keyed in the command to engage full stealth mode for the Valkyrie and the six Falcons (which were slaved to the Valkyrie for this flight). The seven planes effectively vanished when she did that. Then she started initiating the program to assign the allocated flight plans to each Falcon and switch them over to autonomous control, so they all headed off to their designated airfields where they would be put away in hangers once they landed.

Once the Falcons had hived off to their separate destinations, she and Chuck had about fifteen minutes to hold hands and talk quietly before they landed at the airstrip that was their destination. As soon as they came to a stop, the floor/ramp of the main storage compartment was lowered and the latches disengaged so that the Hunter minivan that was being carried could back off the ramp and drive itself around to the side stair under autonomous control while the ramp closed again and was locked in. Chuck programmed the next leg into the Valkyrie's control system, and they grabbed the bags they had in the cabin before leaving the plane. Once out he tapped a command to initiate the door/steps closing as they walked to the van, threw their bags in the back and got in to drive it out of the way, then Chuck sent the command to send the Valkyrie on its way to the regional airport where they maintained its hanger under autonomous control. It wasn't legal, of course, to have planes flying around under autonomous control, but nothing about their planes was really legal (same could be said for most of the things associated with the Council, actually).

After they'd watched the Valkyrie take off and disappear, Mr and Mrs Bartowski hit the road to start their honeymoon. While the usual honeymoon destinations had been discussed, in the end they'd decided that they'd done most of those things on missions, and they didn't particularly want to be around other people anyway, all they wanted was to spend time together and see some scenery, so they went with a road trip, staying in some of the safe houses that the agents who made up the Council had. When they'd first mentioned the road trip idea, everyone started talking about their nicer safe houses, which led to Chuck and Sarah roughly sketching out the basic route they were thinking of taking and the others telling them what safe houses they had on or near that route, so they got the details and keys for some of those safe houses and off they went. When they got around to checking out the safe houses, they couldn't decide which was a bigger shock, the beautiful setting and comfort of Casey's safe house in the woods, or the fact that Carina also had one way out in the woods (in an equally beautiful setting).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (Castle), Casey and Carina stood outside the observation window of Jack's cell, still dressed to the nines from the wedding. Looking at the expressions on the faces looking in at him, Jack was suddenly very afraid. They looked at him for a while before turning and walking away, and he breathed a sigh of relief, at least until the cell door opened ten minutes later and Casey walked in, dressed in utility clothes, all in black. Casey grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the cell and down the hall to another room (obviously an interview room or something), pushing him into a chair at the table in the middle of the room and locking a short tether to the zip tie around his wrists. Casey still hadn't said a word, just glared at him balefully, much like that woman, who was standing in the room dressed like Casey was now. Jack looked from one to the other, and the fear that had subsided to worry when they'd turned and left returned in force, and then some. After looking at him with something that seemed to be a mixture of disgust and hatred for about five minutes the woman opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped by Casey's hand on her arm, they shared a look and then she nodded and stepped back as he turned to Jack, asking why he'd come to see Walker in a low growl. Jack, again, tried to bluff his way through, saying "What do you mean? I came to see my daughter because I was in town and I couldn't call her because she's changed her number, I missed my little girl." Jack only had a few seconds to note the flare in anger from the woman before Casey reached him and grabbed a handful of shirt to drag him over the table to the limit of the tether. Jack was choking from the shirt pulled tight around his neck and it felt like his hands were being almost ripped off, but it was the look in Casey's eyes, mere inches from his own, that terrified him the most. Casey didn't raise his voice, but his tone was full of menace as he said "One more time, why did you come to see Walker, and you better tell me the truth!"

Knowing that he didn't want to find out what would happen to him if he didn't tell the truth Jack blurted out "I needed help to push a deal through quick to get the money to get out of here before some people catch up to me. She owes me for turning me in last time so I was going to use that to get her to help me." He heard a burst of swearing from behind Casey and then Casey twisted to reach back and grasp the woman by the shoulder with his other hand to hold her back. Jack could see the rage and hatred in her eyes over Casey's shoulder as she stared at him, but he couldn't work out why, he was sure he'd never seen her before she kicked him in the face that morning. They stayed like that for a few minutes before the woman started sobbing, when she did Casey released Jack to let him fall face first into the table and turned to put his arms around her, gently leading her out of the room and closing the door.

They stood out in the hall for over five minutes as Carina sobbed in Casey's arms. When she'd settled down she looked up at him and said "Thanks John." and grinned a little at the response of "Don't mention it, really, don't ever mention this to anyone." She reached up on tip toe to kiss him on the cheek with a smile, saying "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me." The smile died as she looked back at the interrogation room and asked "What are we going to do about that bastard?" "Don't look at me, he's your father, but I think W.. Sarah needs to have a say in it as well." She nodded at that, musing, "We're just the result of him playing his games for six months, how many other bastards has he fathered and left out there?" Casey shook his head, there was no way of knowing. Carina's face suddenly firmed with resolve and she turned and marched back into the interrogation room.

Jack was sitting in the chair, trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose, which had been pounded into the table when Casey dropped him (not easy to do when your hands are tied together and can't move more than six inches from the table) when the door opened and that woman stormed back in. When he jumped at her appearance he jarred his wrists again and cried out at the pain that went up his arms. She went to a table off to the side and picked up a notepad and pen, coming back to the table he was secured to and dropping them right in front of him before she told him to write down every alias that he'd ever used, and when and where he'd used them. When he tried to say he didn't know what she was talking about (he really was stupid she thought, no, that wasn't true, he was just so arrogant that he thought he could bluff his way out of everything), she leant over the table and grabbed a nerve point to send shooting pains through him before she told him to start with the known ones (listing a half a dozen including Jack Burton and the one he'd used with her mother), and to make sure he wrote them ALL down. To stop her hurting him any more he grabbed the pen and started writing franticly. Once he'd started, Carina turned and glided across the room to pick up another chair, returning to set it down across the table from him and gracefully settle into it, arms and legs crossed. Whenever Jack looked up from the paper, the look in her eye made him look back down and write even more feverishly.

After half an hour Jack was down to sitting there with a scrunched up face desperately trying to remember any other aliases he'd used (and when and where that was), and scribbling another one down every few minutes as he did so. For some reason this woman frightened him more than Casey did, Casey wanted to hurt him, that was obvious, but he had the feeling that this woman would actually like to kill him. After he'd been sitting there for ten minutes without thinking of any more, he looked at her and apologised as he told her that he couldn't remember any more than that. She nodded and then told him to add his real name, date of birth, his parents' names and home town to the list, he started to baulk but the look in her eye quickly drained him of resistance and he wrote them down when he could make his hands work again, he thought then that he knew what it felt like for a rat to be staring a rattlesnake in the eye now. Once he'd finished she stood, took the notepad and pen from the table and started to walk to the door, only to stop and turn back, asking him if he remembered Rebecca Anden? He searched his memory but came up blank, saying "No, why?" The look she gave him then chilled him more than any she'd given him before as she answered. "She was my mother, nice to see how much you think of us Daddy." With that, she did turn and leave, asking Casey to put him back in his cell and saying that she was going home.

When she got home she changed and went down into the bunker, once she'd settled in down there she brought up one of the search engine programs that Chuck had written for them to use and typed in every alias that her father had listed, setting the program to run separate searches for each name, thinking that her brother-in-law really was a genius as she initiated the searches. She also ran separate searches against all the birth records for the past fifty years (she started out with forty then decided that she didn't really know how old he was, the birth name and parents had checked out, but she had no way of proving that he hadn't stolen them, too), looking for any of the names listed as the father. For the next several hours she cross referenced every hit against the dates and locations that he said he used the given names for, building a quite a large collection of events fairly quickly. The searches showed her's and Sarah's birth records, and by midnight she had a list of at least fifteen to twenty probable siblings, which was disturbing but not really unexpected.

Casey, Ellie and Zondra were down there as well, training and working on projects that couldn't be put aside just because Chuck and Sarah were off on their honeymoon, and they came running over when they heard her blurt out "Fuck!" in a horrified voice. Carina had found a hit from Connecticut, another daughter of a money family who'd been knocked up by the guy who'd conned her into helping take her family for big bucks and then disappeared. It was the mother's marriage certificate from less than two months after the birth though that caused Carina to swear. When the others came over they saw the documents relating to how she was married to one Stuart Larkin who'd just been appointed to the board of her family's company, and that in turn brought up a change of name for the baby to Bryce Larkin that went through a few months later. All the evidence that she could find pointed to it being correct that Bryce was Jack's son, especially in regard to his behaviour and attitude, but given that both sisters had slept with him, it was agreed that they needed to be sure. None of them had the ability needed to hack far enough into the CIA records to pull the archived DNA records for Bryce, so Ellie contacted Stephen to get them ASAP to let them get the comparison done before Chuck and Sarah got back. None of them had seen Carina this shocked before (well, maybe when she was told she was Sarah's sister), and they were all trying to comfort her but she waved them off, explaining that she was mainly worried about Sarah, saying "I'm not worried about who I slept with back then, I could have slept anyone and everyone, and just about did, Hell, I still have daydreams of sleeping with my brother-in-law." When Ellie spun around with a horrified face Carina was grinning, and she spent the next five minutes dodging (barely) the hits coming from Ellie for her rather inappropriate joke, until Zondra grabbed her and Ellie converted the hit to a playful slap, saying "You better not let your sister hear you saying that!", but it had done its job, the mood had been turned around and they were more inclined to laugh about this shit now than cry, which was something that they desperately needed.

When she looked into the list of her other probable siblings, it was an interesting read, in that it was a split of about 50/50 between notable criminals and "good" citizens, most of the criminal side had a similar background to her's, in that their mothers had fallen apart when they were abandoned with a baby so they were pretty much out on their own from a young age, but most of the "good" ones looked like model citizens, there were even six who were highly regarded federal agents of some sort or another (not including Bryce). When she stopped to think about it, that really wasn't that much of a surprise, as like it or not, they did appear to have inherited some things from Jack that worked well in both the criminal world and the spy game, athletic, charming, able to think on their feet, moderately bright for the most part, and generally attractive (looking at the records and pictures of the mothers, with the exception of a few that he'd seduced to get his "in" with the inner circle in mob families etc, the women tended to all fit a type, young, smart, beautiful, just the sort of partner he needed to help him pull off his cons). It was a disturbing thought to think that she may owe her father for part of her success, but that didn't take away from the fact that she definitely owed him for most of the shit had happened to her, and Sarah, and their mothers. She mused that it wasn't that surprising that they came together the way they did, though, because the best tend to be put together in any given field, so when they'd ended up with the CIA, it was almost inevitable that they'd meet each other.

When they got into Castle the next morning, Jack was shouting that they couldn't keep him there, it wasn't legal. He shut up when Casey pointed out that no-one knew he was here, and they could flush him down the toilet in little pieces without anyone being any the wiser. Carina felt like turning the screws after what she'd gone through the night before, and told him that she was thinking of contacting her brothers and sisters that she'd just found out about and bring them over for a family reunion to meet the father that left their mothers when he found out that they were pregnant, it may have to wait a while, though, because some of them weren't out of prison yet. She delivered this dialogue in a deceptively sweet voice while looking at him through the observation window, but the look in her eyes convinced him of what he'd been thinking yesterday, this woman, his daughter? really would like to kill him. He stayed quiet after that and tried his best to be invisible, everyone in this group was dangerous, except maybe Charlie, and he wasn't even sure about him any more.

A few days after Carina had her family reunion, General Diane Beckman was summoned to a meeting with the President. When the others left the room and the President started speaking she held up her hand to stop him as she pulled an electronic device out of her purse and put it on the desk after she turned it on. He gestured to the device and asked what it was, so she explained that it was a signal jammer and white noise generator. She also explained that she couldn't guarantee that it would be 100% effective to negate any hard wired listening devices or cameras working, so there would be some things that she couldn't discuss in that office, and she would have to stop him saying some things outright as well. She did offer at that point that if he wanted to discuss further aspects, they could have that discussion in a safe location elsewhere, as they trusted him, but not the environment that they were in. His response to that was "Are you trying to tell me that the office of the President of the United States isn't a safe location?" She stayed resolute as she looked at him and answered "Not to discuss the things that you've called me here to answer, no sir."

After what he'd seen at that wedding (not just the planes, he'd been in the military and he knew what dangerous people looked like, and just about everyone there fit that description), he knew that there was far more going on than he'd been privy to, and for some reason he trusted this hard arsed little soldier, so he just looked at her for a minute as he thought about how best to phrase questions to get some actual answers. "Was what Stephen said about him creating those planes for the family true?" "Yes Sir" "I saw descriptions of planes that seemed to match the ones I saw in the reports of a recent operation, were they the planes used in that operation?" "Yes sir, they were." "Is it reasonable to presume, then, that the people who planned and ran that operation were among the ones that I met the other day?" "Yes sir, they were." "Are those people part of a secret organisation running around fighting wars under the covers?" "Yes sir, they are." "Why?" "Because as we've seen for years now, nefarious organisations such as Fulcrum, the Ring, Volkoff Industries and many others have infiltrated the official intelligence, military and government bodies at all levels and have corrupted them to the point that they cannot be relied upon or trusted to do what they are called upon to do by the proper authorities, so others have to root out that corruption. In that operation you referred to, four of the people who were running the operation were shot in the back by traitors in the teams allocated to them who had been turned by Volkoff Industries or other associated parties, my godson and his new wife among them." "Godson?" "Yes sir, his mother and I have been friends for over thirty five years now, as well as the man who gave away the bride, his wife's mother has been a friend for over twenty five years too."

His head was reeling at the moment, she had confirmed the organisation existed and had run the very successful take down of Volkoff Industries, she'd given him some the core group who started the organisation (and he had a good idea of their credentials), and on top of that she'd told him that his administration and most of his infrastructure was compromised. If he was to believe her, and he was inclined to, he had to set up a meeting at their "safe location" to get the full story (or at least as much as they would give him), if he was to have a chance of surviving this.

At that point, the door of his office suddenly opened and the General's hand darted out to grab and pocket the device, turning it off as she did so (damn, fast hands he thought). The person who entered was one of his Secret Service detail, carrying a tray of coffee and hors d'oeuvres, saying that the tray that he'd ordered had been delivered, but it was thought that it was better brought in by someone with security clearance in case any classified materials were out on display. They both noted the way that he was surreptitiously looking around the room, and the President thanked him and told him to put the tray on the coffee table across the room, but added that he hadn't ordered any tray, so the request should be looked into straight away. The Secret Service agent said that he would look into it and departed, closing the door. The General pulled the device out of her pocket and returned it to the desk, turning it on, when he saw the light that presumably meant that it was working, the President noted that apparently the jamming device was working if they had to come in to try and find out why their bugs weren't working? She gave a small smile as she said "Apparently so."

Given that they thought that they were relatively free to speak at that point, he told her that he would like to have that discussion in a safe location, even more so now that they seemed to have just gotten confirmation of what she was telling him about the people around him being compromised. She nodded, pulling one of Orion's secure phones out of her purse and handing it to him, telling him the PIN and saying that he was to take it and store it somewhere safe, and that he would get a text on the phone in a week or so to tell him when to call to make arrangements. She also told him if he kept his voice down, the jamming/white noise features of the phone would prevent him being monitored. She mentioned that if there was any intel or warnings that they thought he needed, it would be sent to the phone, so he probably should turn it on at least once a day to check. As an afterthought she added that they used voice changing filters and code names on all their coms for security, his would be Eagle, theirs were in the phone with their initials "Mine is Cougar", she added with a grimace. With that she watched him put away the phone and turned off and pocketed the jamming device then glanced at the coffee table and, taking his cue, he said "Well I think that concludes our business General, as someone had seen fit to supply us with coffee and nibbles, shall we partake?" "Yes Sir, that would be nice." They relocated to the chairs at the coffee table and chatted while they relaxed for the next ten – fifteen minutes, then an aide arrived to remind the President that he had another meeting in ten minutes and they said their goodbyes_._

While all this was going on back in the real world, the Bartowskis were blissfully ignoring the world outside as they immersed themselves in each other, they spent nearly a week in Casey's safe house as they sat out on the porch taking in the breathtaking vistas before retiring inside to the king sized bed or in front of the fire (they spent a fair bit of time on that bearskin rug), they only spent a couple of days at Carina's safe house though, the scenery was stunning, but the mirror over the bed freaked them out a little (not so much the one over the Jacuzzi though, for some reason), and after that they spent about four days at one of Sarah's out of the way safe houses. They did check their messages but everyone kept telling them that everything was fine, so they stayed and enjoyed their honeymoon. They still did their "runs", exercise, tai chi etc and some light sparring of course, that was too engrained in them to stop, but generally they just relaxed and enjoyed being together without anyone else around.

The rest of the team were continuing with the general Hunter Security business, minor government missions and the Volkoff mop up operations, and they kept Jack in the cell in Castle. They ignored him for the most part, but Carina taunted him whenever she had the urge and the others would just come and stare at him silently at times, as that freaked him out. Carina was spending a lot of her free time compiling a dossier of what Jack had done under each of his aliases, and the statute of limitations hadn't run out on half of them, so she had more than enough to ensure that he was put away for the rest of his life at least. The urge to kill him for what he'd caused to be done to Sarah and her, and their mothers (Hell, all of his children and their mothers) was still strong, but Chuck had effected all of them to the extent that they didn't kill unless necessary now, so she complied the criminal dossier, and also the dossier of his probable children and their lives, and would show those to Sarah and let her make the choice, given that he was more of a father to her than any of the rest of them, though that meant he'd also directly hurt her more than the rest.

General Beckman was discussing the situation with the President with the rest of the Council while they were waiting for Chuck and Sarah to finish their honeymoon, nothing would proceed until their return, because it had been decided (albeit in their absence) that they would be driving the meeting and the future actions, but she filled the rest of them in on her meeting with him and they discussed the ramifications, and as per her advice to him, when important intel came up, they sent it to him via the phone for him to act on, or advise the relevant parties (some intel involved other countries, so he could strengthen relations with them by passing on the information to them).

Throughout, work in the bunkers was continuing, and they were taking shipments of equipment to be installed nearly every night. Casey, Carina and Zondra were almost giddy when they got the shooting ranges installed and operational. The range facilities were at the level of the best ones in the newer training facilities, and that meant that they could develop their weapons skills so much better with it than they could previously.

Since they'd expanded the team, fleet and operations, Stephen had been playing with a side project along with some of his inventor friends, working on the plans and simulations for a high speed airship transport (borrowing some concepts from the Aeroscraft) that could carry any equipment including the mobile command centres, strike teams etc. Obviously this would be much slower (over fifteen times) than their almost hypersonic fleet, but it would let them transport whatever they needed to any site, and it would share the planes' VTOL capabilities so it could work point to point, if it took over a day to ship equipment (and possibly extra personnel) to the other side of the world the world, it would be still faster than most other methods and they could stay clear of airports or any other public infrastructure. Stephen's inventor connections generally jumped at the chance to work with him on his projects, as he had access to the funding needed to actually build them, something very few of the others could (and then not without strings attached that they weren't prepared to deal with), so he had a fair sized community of geniuses of his calibre in many fields who were ready and eager to work with him, little surprise really that they managed to come up with workable creations that most would say were impossible? He had been planning on waiting to talk to Chuck before he commenced serious work on the project (as he used Chuck as his sounding board on everything of this nature), but when he said that once they'd reached the point where they were confident of the design a couple of days after the wedding, the others on the Council laughed at him, pointing out that Chuck would jump at the chance and be like a kid with a new toy, and it was agreed that, if there were minor changes needed, they could be worked into the design as the project progressed. So the Roc project was kicked off and they were most of the way through acquiring whatever additional facilities they needed by the time that Chuck and Sarah returned from their honeymoon (the nearly $1 Billion that they extracted from Volkoff Industries to ensure it was crippled when they took it down gave them the funds to cover this and other projects quite amply).

When they did come back from their honeymoon, they had a number of things to address, one of the first for Sarah was her father, Chuck had told her about her father turning up the morning of the wedding and Carina and Casey locking him up in Castle (even though they'd planned to tell her that they'd done it without his knowledge, they weren't surprised when they found out that he'd told her the full story before they even got off the Valkyrie, but by the time she called them they were able to tell her the real reason he turned up). When Chuck and Sarah got home Carina took them both aside and showed them the dossiers she'd compiled on what Jack had done, including the ones about his other children, but she held out the information about Bryce until Sarah had gone over the rest. Stephen had extracted Bryce's DNA records and they'd used them to confirm that he was indeed Jack's son, so there was no question about the news that Carina was about to tell them. The shock, disgust and shame that came over Sarah when she read his file made her almost inconsolable, but Chuck just held her while she let it all out. Carina knew that this would happen, well they all did to a degree, but her indiscriminate sexual exploits as she was trying to stamp out her demons for ten years gave her the ability to disconnect from it. Everything she'd been made to do, and had done in an effort to purge herself and wipe out her memory of those things had pretty much left her in a position of "having no shame", but Sarah had never taken her path on similar things, she'd held onto her shame and pushed it down. That was why Sarah was so tortured much of the time, until Chuck helped her, she had no way of dealing with her demons other than pushing them down. This was one hit that she had no way of handling, and while Chuck's love and support was unwavering and unconditional, he was almost as shocked as Sarah was at this news.

When Sarah had settled down, she picked up all the files and announced that she was going to see her father, Chuck and Carina tried to talk her out of it, telling her that she'd be better off waiting until she was feeling better, but she was determined, so they went with her. Carina dragged Jack out of his cell and into the interrogation room again, while Sarah explained to Chuck that this was something that she and Carina needed to do by themselves. Chuck resisted letting her go through this by herself, but eventually capitulated, saying that he would be right outside the observation window and that he WOULD be in there in an instant if she needed him. She smiled sadly at that and said she knew he would, then wrapped her arms around him and kissed him before telling him that she loved him, kissing him again when he told her the same. At that she put her weapons in her bag to ward off temptation (Carina's were already in there), took out the files and handed the bag to Chuck. Then she kissed him again, drew a breath and went into the interrogation room, closing the door behind her.

When she walked into the room and threw the files on the table in front of him, Jack tried to handle it in his usual way "Hello Darlin', I don't know what she's told you but it's not what it looks like..." She cut him off before he could come out with any more of his bullshit, "I think that it's clear that it's exactly what it looks like Mr Burton, or Mr (looking down at the list of aliases), well we can use Burton for convenience, and don't call me Darlin', you will address me as Agent.. (looking quickly up at the mirror that Chuck was behind) Walker or Ma'am! We are here to address the crimes that you have committed under your admitted aliases, and other matters." By this point, Jack had realised that he'd used up whatever chances he'd had, as Sarah, as she went by nowadays, was obviously as furious with him as the other one was, though why he didn't know. Sarah spent the next few hours interrogating him about the crimes under the various aliases that Carina had dug up while she was away, at first he tried to deny them, but when her expression showed how close to violence she was he gave in and admitted them and provided details as she brought them up, the recordings of his confession would be added to the other evidence. Once they had his confession on file for most of the crimes that Carina had discovered, enough for a couple of life terms of incarceration, Sarah turned to the other files, the twenty four children that the records showed that he had fathered, Bryce's record was on the bottom as she still wasn't sure how to handle that. Sarah went through the children one by one, referring to them only by birth names and mothers' names, and going into great detail of how fucked up many of their lives had been because their father had skipped out on their mothers when they were pregnant, leaving most of them penniless. When she got to Carina's file, she looked up at her but Carina's stony expression told her to continue, so she listed the events of Carina's life until she was forced to take a deal to do worse things than anyone would do by choice to avoid a worse fate, next came her own and she described the things that she and her mother had been forced to go along with because of him. Throughout it all, he was refusing to accept responsibility for what happened to any of the children or their mothers, not even the two daughters standing in the room with him. When she finally got to Bryce's file, he was still denying responsibility and he got a hell of a shock when her punch to his face threw him across the room. Carina immediately turned to the mirror and held her hand up to stop Chuck coming in, he held back under sufferance but cut the recording immediately, just in time. Sarah grabbed Jack by the shirt (much like Casey had) and lifted him up to scream in his face "Not your responsibility? Because of your need to fuck any woman you could con into bed and leave unrecognised bastards all over the country I was having sex with my own brother for a year while I was in a relationship with him because I had no idea who he was. Who's responsible if not you, DAD?" At that she dropped him and stood back, sobbing, and Carina gently led her over to the door and pushed her out into Chuck's arms before closing it again.

Sarah stood in Chuck's arms in the hall, sobbing uncontrollably while he held her. Meanwhile, inside the room Carina was advising Jack that, for his confessed crimes, he would be going to prison for the rest of his life. He tried to argue (as much as he could with a broken jaw) that he had to get a trial but she cut him off, telling him that he wasn't going into the normal prison system, because of his proclivity to try and use any information to his advantage and his exposure to classified government information, he would be placed incommunicado in a government super-max facility until the day he died. At that point she leant over the table and quietly and menacingly told him that if they EVER heard that he was trying to do deals or talk about them, anything at all, she would personally come and end him for what he had done to her, and especially for what he'd done to Sarah. She then left him quivering at the table (because he had no doubt that she would do exactly what she said) and went to check outside the door to see whether Sarah and Chuck were still there, as they were she motioned them away and Chuck led Sarah around the corner, which then left her free to go back in and drag Jack back to his cell. When he was safely locked away she called the General and asked her to initiate the plan that they'd arranged previously to have him locked away as she'd described. She did ask that arrangements be made to fix his broken jaw and cheekbone when he was taken in, as apparently he had fallen down and injured himself.

It took Sarah some time to get over that, but when Chuck tried to give her space and hold off anything in bed she went hysterical, telling him that she'd let him out of the marriage because he obviously didn't want to have anything to do with her now that he knew. At that he held her face in a gentle but unbreakable grip to force her to look him in the eye as he told her that nothing would ever make him want to leave her, he would give her as much or as little space as she needed as long as she was in his life for as long as they both lived. For a fair while she didn't answer, she struggled to get free for a while and the wild and despondent look didn't fade from her eyes for a while longer, but eventually she looked back at him with the same love that was in his eyes and simply said "No space." as she relaxed into his arms. Their love making that night was more desperate than their usual soft, tender fare, but it served to drive her demons away and brought her peace, so they were both content with that.

**A/N: In case I was being too subtle (I've been told that the way I put things is missed by many because I apparently do too good a job of being not obvious), the fact that Bryce's "father" was appointed to the board of his mother's family's company just before he married her to give her illegitimate child a name was a BRIBE, which should tell you what sort of douche he was, the baby's given name was also changed to Bryce as that sounded more impressive and worthy of his illustrious name, that was why Carina's alarm bells didn't go off until she saw who the woman married, Carina's no fool, she wouldn't have missed a name like "Bryce". FWIW**


	14. Secret Service

**OK, so it looks like I'll be continuing this for those few who care.**

**Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed unless created here.**

Jack never thought that the thing that frightened him most would be a girl saying "Daddy", but in the past couple of weeks it had become that, and when he heard "Hi Daddy" next to him, he jumped. That woman, Carina (who was apparently his daughter) was standing inside his cell, somehow she'd come into the cell without him noticing, there was something wrong about her, really wrong.

Carina watched her father, taking pleasure in the fear that he was showing, the bastard deserved to sweat, with that she started to stir the pot. "I just wanted to make sure that you remembered our little talk yesterday and that you understood that I was serious?" Jack tried to crawl back into the wall as he tried to say "Yes", (while they'd bandaged his broken jaw to immobilise it, it would require proper attention before it would be right again). "That's good, now I know that you think that I'm your worst nightmare at the moment, but I'm not." The incredulous look he gave her almost made her laugh, but she had to keep a straight face to deliver the punch line. "No, that would be your son-in-law." She noted him looking down at her hand but she'd made sure that she was wearing leather gloves to keep him guessing on that one. "You see the most important thing to your son-in-law is his family, and if you EVER do anything to cause anyone to come after us, well he would be rather upset, and you don't want that to happen. I thought you may be interested in seeing him in action." with that she started a video on the tablet in her hand and handed it over.

The video was a montage that included the clip of Chuck that Sarah had sent to them in the middle of the battle in the clean up operation, an external camera's footage of him jumping through the 5th floor window of that building to grab the window cleaners' scaffold cable and slide down it, finishing with a very impressive swing and twenty foot high dismount from the rope to land with a couple of rolls, ending up back to his feet to trot away from the building and then turn and stand watching as the building collapsed, other footage of him taking out a couple of LAVs with a rail gun as everything around him was being chewed up by their heavy machine gun fire, some of the early footage from the "ninja master" videos that showed him taking down opponents right, left and centre, and similar clips. When the video finished Jack looked up wide eyed, but all he could get out was "Who?" She smiled inwardly as she answered "Most people know him as Special Agent Carmichael, those who know him better sometimes call him Mad Dog Carmichael, but there aren't too many people alive who can call him that."

She took the tablet off him and stepped back, saying "I just wanted to make sure that you understand that it would be a very bad idea to do anything that would make us come back to see you, because if we do, it won't be good for you." She looked him in the eye and said "If it comes to that, you better hope that it's me who finds you first, because if you've done anything that harms us, he's likely to tear you limb from limb, from limb." She stopped and cocked her head. "That line is actually Sugar Bear's favourite, but I've seen Mad Dog do it, and it was a mess. So, do you understand what I'm telling you Daddy?" Jack was shaking as he nodded so hard that it must have been sending pain shooting through his broken jaw. "OK then Daddy, if you behave yourself you probably won't see me again." With that she used the palm scanner to open the door and left, closing it behind her.

Casey was down the hall and motioned her into the interrogation room down there. When they were inside he asked her why she was telling her father all that bullshit? Holding his hand out for the tablet, he watched the video when she handed it over, when it finished he looked a little stunned and rather impressed, saying "I keep forgetting just how good he is now, when I look at him, I still see Chuck. Anyway, this would intimidate most people, but why tell your father all that other shit?" Carina looked at him, and then asked "Isn't family the most important thing to Chuck?" He nodded "Wouldn't he be upset if anyone came after us?" He nodded again, but asked "What was all that crap you were feeding him about Mad Dog Carmichael?" "Well, isn't he Special Agent Carmichael to most people?" Nod. "Didn't you starting call him Mad Dog on a mission and keep it up to wind him up, and aren't there only a few of us who know about that nickname?"

He was actually looking impressed as he nodded again, but asked why she was trying to make him sound like a real mad dog, and what was all that about him tearing someone limb from limb, from limb? "From what Sarah and Chuck, and you, have told me about my father, he's always trying to find an angle get himself out of the holes he's dug for himself, that was borne out by my observations of him and the reports I've read, so if we don't give him something to be really afraid of he's likely to try and pull one of his stunts. He's afraid of me. But he doesn't know enough about me to make him so afraid that he wouldn't take a chance. So I give him enough truth about his son-in-law to really worry him with that video, give him enough half truths to convince him that Chuck IS Mad Dog and is not to be crossed, give him a name that can be checked to confirm Agent Carmichael's reputation, and that should keep him in line. The limb from limb thing, well, you saw Fred the day that he revoked the President's invite to his wedding?" "Fred?" "Fred, the training dummy that Chuck took apart after he got off the phone." "Oh yeah, there were pieces and shot sprayed all over the training room by the time he finished." Carina nodded and said "As I said, it was a mess." with a grin.

Casey was seriously impressed by this stage, but had to ask "Why do you keep prodding him with the "Daddy" thing, you don't really expect him to feel guilty do you?" Carina's face hardened and at first he thought she wasn't going to answer, but then she started talking quietly. "Daddy is to remind me why I hate him." Casey looked confused, so she explained. "When I was a kid there was an endless stream of guys who I was made to call "Daddy", most of them were feeling me up, and as I got older they tried to fuck me, until I was twelve and one cornered me and did. If he (pointing at Jack's cell) had stuck around, or even looked after us at all, maybe my mother wouldn't have brought all those guys into our lives to have a go at me, so I call my father "Daddy" to remind myself what I went through because of him." At that she started crying and Casey came around the table to put his arms around her.

She was still crying in his arms ten minutes later when the agents came to pick up Jack, when he saw Carina in Casey's arms one of them smirked, nudging his partner and saying something with a dirty laugh, Casey went to go after him but Carina restrained him, saying "This is mine." She wiped her face, straightened her clothes and walked out of the interview room and down the hall to where they were, addressing the one who'd made the crack as she asked what he'd said? He smirked again and stated saying something about wishing he got the same benefits package when Carina struck, taking out his knee first, then a strike to the throat to shut him up, a knee to the groin and when he was on his knees next to the wall, she explained that her partner was being a friend and comforting her, something that he wouldn't understand, but it was doubtful that he heard half of it, as she was punctuating just about every other word by smashing his face into the wall, before too long his face was a bloody mess and he had to be unconscious. The guy's partner went to intervene after she'd hit him the first three or four times, but before he'd could move a step he had a very large agent standing in front of him, growling. As the agent had heard about Colonel John Casey, he stood down immediately.

Casey pulled Carina off the guy and to her feet, quietly saying that she didn't have to worry about her father taking her seriously now. She looked up at him and then shot a look over his shoulder at her father looking absolutely terrified, and smiled into Casey's shoulder. Casey told the conscious agent to carry his partner out while he led Jack out to their car in shackles, and advised the agent that if he didn't get notified that Jack was processed into the prison on schedule, he'd come looking for an explanation. The agent just answered "Yes sir" and took off, his only priority was to get the prisoner processed, there'd be time to get his partner to hospital later. The Colonel's last words were seared into his brain. "Tell your partner that if either of us see him again, he dies, and the same goes if either of you ever talk to anyone what happened here today."

Later that day, Carina quietly asked Ellie if she had a moment to talk? Ellie nodded and they went down into Castle, Carina looked nervous as she started to talk. "I just want to clear the air before you see or hear anything that may cause trouble. The past couple of weeks have been a bad time for me" (Ellie nodded, wondering where this was going) "Well I've been falling apart a lot and Casey has spent a fair bit of time holding me and comforting me, I just wanted you to know that there's nothing going on between us, he was just being a good friend." She hesitated. "I think I've kissed him a number of times as well, but it was just as a friend." Ellie pulled her into a hug and asked why she thought that she needed to tell her this? Carina pulled back to look at her and told her that it was pretty obvious that there WAS something going on between her and Casey, and she didn't want to cause any problems for them, especially after Devon. Ellie looked confused and Carina grinned, telling her that she was as bad as Chuck, then shook her head, saying "Anyway, you know that Casey and I are just friends, right?" Ellie nodded, and with that Carina said "OK" and they went back up to the Hunter offices.

When Chuck awoke to the usual and welcome sight of Sarah's blonde locks across his chest, he smiled contentedly and kissed the top of her head. When she mumbled into his chest something about running away and forgetting about all of this, he sighed and said that he'd love to, but they couldn't. She lifted her head to look at him through the golden curtain of her hair, asking "Couldn't we at least go back to the honeymoon to wipe out yesterday?" He sighed again as he pulled her up for a kiss and said that if they could get the current business out of the way quickly, he'd try to get the others to agree for them to get away for another two or three days to try and scrub yesterday from their memories. She nodded and kissed him again, settling back down into his chest, saying "It's just not fair, everything was so right when we came back, but yesterday ruined it." He kissed her on the head again and whispered into her hair "Not everything was ruined, we have each other, we're married at last, we have a baby coming and we have our family here for us, I'd say that we still have a lot." She nodded with her face pressed into his chest, saying "We do, but yesterday was just so awful, I love you." "Love you more." (Since he'd heard the almost ritual exchange between her and her mother, he'd loved it.) With that she sat up to kiss him properly, saying "As if" as she climbed off the bed to grab some clothes and head into the shower.

After they got into the office and Sarah was otherwise occupied for a while, he called the Cougar to broach the subject of them taking off for a few more days to give Sarah a chance to get over what she'd learned the day before. He was surprised when she agreed straight away, saying "Leopard advised me of what happened in the session with their father, and you'll both need to be on your best game for the meeting with Eagle, so that's the best approach at the moment.", so it was agreed that they'd spend the day catching up on the backlog of the past two weeks and take one of the Falcons back to Casey's cabin for a few days to give Sarah a chance to recover. As soon as he got off the phone he went to tell Sarah the news and then got to work. Stephen was a little disappointed that Chuck didn't have time to go over the plans for the Roc, but when Chuck angrily cut him off, saying that he had a lot to get done so he could take the time to look after his wife, he apologised and said that they'd talk about it later. Chuck calmed down a little then and told him to send the files over and he'd look them over, which mollified him (Stephen had greatly improved since he'd loaded the BI, but it looked like he'd always retain some of the behaviour traits that he'd developed, which made him a little childish at times.)

By the end of the day they'd knocked over enough of the critical or important things to cover for a couple of days, at least, and they didn't even bother going home, they just took some clothes that they had in Castle and headed straight out to the airstrip where the nearest Falcon was. They kept it in stealth mode all the way and avoided any towns on the way in to reduce the chance of anyone hearing them, using Chuck's signature move to transition quickly and relatively quietly to VTOL over the cabin (pull up into a sudden stop stall and engage the lift jets just as it falls off, something pretty much impossible to do without perfect integration of the full BI). He set the Falcon down in the open patch behind the cabin and they left it in camouflage mode as they grabbed their bags and went inside. Casey's cabin was the perfect choice to get away to, because they'd spent the best parts of their honeymoon there, and being there brought that back straight away, by the time they got up in the morning Sarah's spirits had already picked up quite a bit, and they just dropped back into the mode they'd been when they were there. When Chuck got to look over the Roc files, he was as excited as everyone had known he would be, even Sarah was impressed when she saw the concept and projected specs, she grinned as she said "Wow, you geeks ARE good.", he grinned back as he kissed her and said "Nerds, Honey, nerds." By the end of the second day, Sarah felt up to facing things again so, much as they would have loved to stay there, they packed up and left that night. Everyone was still up when they got into the apartment and they went down to the Bunkers to catch up with them. When they thanked Casey and went to give him the keys for the cabin he told them to keep them and to consider the cabin a wedding present, somewhere to get away to when they needed a break, Sarah hugged him and kissed him with tears in her eyes (happy tears this time) as she whispered "Thank you" in his ear.

When they were back on deck, everyone sat down in a video conference about what the plan was for the meeting with the President. Obviously Diane would be attending, along with Mary and Emma, as the ones who had done most of the planning for the Council from the start, but when they were told that they had to be there as the leaders of the Council, Chuck and Sarah argued as much as they had when Bryan and Emma had said that to them at Emma's, eventually they were overruled ten to two (Josie, Alex and Frank weren't full members of the Council as yet, and hence weren't part of that meeting), which Chuck would have found amusing if he wasn't angry about it, they were outvoted to push through the fact that they were the leaders of the people outvoting them? He pushed that down as he got onto the point of this, what were they going to tell the President, and what assistance were they going to offer him?

They'd used the Council's air fleet at the wedding to initiate the meeting he'd called with the General, as they trusted the man (if not the office), and could see increasing evidence of the nefarious forces gathering around him, so they wanted to get into the position of having discussions with him so they could advise him of the dangers he was facing. Given that they'd seen compromise in the very people supposedly protecting him, it appeared that they may have to take a role in his protection, a secret, Secret Service as it were. When they'd nutted out the type of things that they'd cover off in the meeting (including, against Chuck's arguments, a showing of the video Carina had put together to wind up her father, with some additional footage of others in the team in action, and some of their transports and other equipment), they went on to discuss what they could do to keep the man that they were trying to work with alive. Carina pointed out that one of the siblings that she'd just discovered was a fairly senior Secret Service agent, so she proposed that they investigate her and monitor her, and providing that she appeared to be clean, approach her to feel her out about coming on board, as that could give them an "in" with the Secret Service that they needed, and they couldn't get all the intel they needed by purely electronic means. Her proposal was accepted and they launched the investigation into Jill Marin. Looking at her picture, Sarah realised that she'd been one of the close protection agents at the wedding, which could work in their favour, given that she would have seen how the President was with them and that may help with trust issues.

While they were busy gathering intel to finish mopping up Volkoff Industries and prioritising the actions against the organisations trying to rise to fill the gap that Volkoff had left, the issue of the President was significant, so the investigations into Jill Marin were given a priority. From everything they could discover, she seemed totally clean and above board, so Sarah and Carina went to talk to her in her apartment. When they turned up at the door she was suspicious, but as they'd thought, the fact that the President had dealt with them the way he did made her give them the benefit of the doubt. To give them an "in" and let them work up to the security issue, they opened with the fact that they believed that she was their sister, talking about what they recently discovered about their father, and the fact that it wasn't that far back that they'd discovered that they were related, either. They spent about half an hour discussing their father's proclivities and the records that Carina had dug up when she investigated. Jill could see that there was something that Sarah was holding back and she called her on it, Carina tried to deflect the subject but Sarah stopped her, and after taking about 30 seconds to compose herself she looked at Jill and told her that she'd just found out that week that she'd been sleeping with with one of her half brothers for about a year when she was in a relationship with him years ago, that had brought up a lot of shame and disgust when she found out and she was still trying to get over it. Jill immediately came over to put her arms around her and tell her how sorry she was for bringing that up but Sarah told her that she'd be OK, she had a loving husband and family to help her get over it (even this one, she said as she looked at Carina), which got a grin from Carina, and they quickly finished up the story about their father for now by telling Jill that he was in a government super-max prison and would never be released, they also pointed out that if Jill really wanted to know, they could run the DNA tests for her since they had all of their father's details on file.

With the family issue out of the way, they went into the fact that they, and the President, had evidence that the Secret Service was compromised and they'd appreciate her help in delving into how deep and widespread that compromise was, so that they could do something about it, because they thought that this President was worth keeping alive and where he was. Jill agreed with them about the President, noting that he was a far better man than the last one had been, and making a decision on the basis of the information she had so far, just asked what they needed her to do to help. Unfortunately, she hadn't been on duty the day that the General had her meeting with the President, but she would be on the lookout for any suspicious activity from then on. With her permission, they called Chuck in to convert her to one of Orion's secure phones like he did Frank, and to explain the technical side of things to her (like the bug finder/jammer that the General used in the meeting with the President).

It was Chuck who, after looking at how the three women were together, mentioned to her that while the priority at the moment was to try and ensure the President's safety, they would like to talk to her about joining them in a wider capacity when they had a chance. Jill looked around at them and smiled, saying that she thought she'd like that, and that she'd also like to find out about her new brother-in-law who was so important that the President made a special effort to attend his wedding, and apparently didn't mind being left waiting until after they'd seen others there at the wedding to have his time with the bride and groom. Chuck just stuttered a little and said that they'd have plenty of time for that discussion while Sarah and Carina grinned at him. Jill looked from one to the other, thinking that this was a very interesting family that she'd apparently just joined.

When Chuck also pointed out to the girls that maybe they'd like to get Jill's measurements to update her wardrobe, they shared a look, asking themselves why they hadn't thought of that? Jill asked what the hell they were talking about with the wardrobe thing, so the girls started explaining and showing her about the protection capabilities of the clothes that they and Chuck were wearing. It was hard to believe that those relatively normal looking clothes could provide that much protection, so they rigged up the different types of clothes around her living room, pulled out their pistols and, setting them to suppressed mode, put the equivalent of several mag's worth of rounds into them, it was a little disturbing to see her half sisters and apparent brother-in-law (that was distracting) standing there in their underwear as they shot round after round into the clothes arrayed in her living room, then put the weapons away as they examined the clothes together and she saw that none of the bullets had penetrated, it was obvious that being shot in an armour cloth blouse or dress would still leave damage, as the armour cloth didn't stop the bullet, it merely prevented it from penetrating, but the blazers, trousers etc worked far better at stopping bullets than the issued vests did, and there was always the fact that just not having a bullet go through you was a definite advantage, so she was quite interested in taking them up on that offer of the new wardrobe. Once they'd gotten dressed again, the girls took her measurements as they talked, and it was surprising to see Chuck turn around to be considerate of her modesty as they did so when they'd been standing mostly naked in front of her just before, she'd never met a man quite like this one.

While they were there she asked if she could see their pistols, because they were like nothing she'd ever seen before, both types were oddly shaped air pistols with a 10mm calibre, the "full sized" ones weren't that big, but they apparently had incredible capacity and could switch ammo from three different sources, on top of that they could apparently be switched on the fly from suppressed to normal to high powered and fire semi auto or three round bursts, all in a relatively easily concealed pistol? The small ones were tiny, they almost disappeared into the hand but they still had at least as much capacity as most full sized pistols and could be switched between two ammo types, as well as having the suppressed or normal power settings, they were only semi auto though. She looked at the pistols and the clothes and the phone, and asked where they got all of these things, she was sceptical when they said that people in the group made them, but she'd seen enough of these people already not to discount anything they told her, especially when she remembered those planes, she hadn't seen anything like them, either.

They wound up their initial meeting then, but they saw Jill a number of times over the following week as they were delivering her new wardrobe and filling her in on the details, they also got the DNA test results back to confirm that she was definitely Sarah and Carina's half sister. The more they talked, though, the more obvious that they didn't really need the DNA test as the similarities between the girls in personality and habits were coming out more as everyone relaxed.

With a Secret Service agent on board now, they were a little more confident of their ability to get to the root of the issue. While Jill handled one of the two threads of information gathering, Stephen and Chuck were overseeing the online investigations, obviously. Once Chuck and Sarah were press ganged into attending the meeting with the President as the Council's "leaders", the President was advised of the day/time and location, they also advised him to request Jill as an inconspicuous guard as it would be easier to imply that he wanted low key for something he didn't want the wife or others to know about than it would be to try and come up with a reason to ditch his guards altogether.

When they arrived at the meeting, the President was quite surprised to see Jill walk over to hug and kiss Sarah and Chuck, when he asked whether someone could explain to him what was going on, Sarah told him about her father's habits and the fact that they'd just discovered that she had well over twenty half siblings around the country, one was Carina, her red headed bridesmaid, and another turned out to be Agent Jill Marin of the Secret Service, so they'd investigated her and then contacted her to bring her on board. The President was obviously bemused by the news, but he was quickly learning that the only surprise with these people would be if things fit what was considered "normal" by everyone else, so he accepted it and settled down to get the story about this group. If the President was surprised when Chuck took the lead in the meeting, he didn't show it. At the start Chuck handed off the tale of the history of the Council to the General and his mother, as they were the original pair that started the whole thing. Jill was as engrossed as the President was with the story she was hearing, as Chuck and the others had already told her that they would like her to join them in what they were doing, she could see Chuck and Sarah talking quietly across the table, but was paying more attention to the story. Emma, on the other hand, knew the story, and she was more interested in what was going on with her new son-in-law, as it was obvious he wasn't happy about something and she could see that his wife Sarah, her little Sammie, was trying to find out what that was.

Sarah leant over with her hand on Chuck's shoulder and her mouth near his ear as she asked what was wrong. Chuck put his hand up to cover her's as he turned lightly to her and replied quietly "I'm not comfortable with doing a pitch as an elite military operation that can lead the charge to overcome our enemies with might, we saw on the Volkoff operation that when we had to pull in strike teams for the manpower, over a quarter of those "trusted" strike teams turned on us, our strength is more in investigating and planning the smartest solution, we can take action if required but that should only happen when we've planned every angle, doing the Volkoff operation their way put us all at way too much risk." She nodded before replying. "Well they've insisted that we're the leaders of this group, so if you aren't comfortable putting forward that line, you've got until they finish the history to decide what to tell him, your mother and the General probably won't be happy that you've changed tack, but we're here to sell him on what we can do to help and convince him to support us when we need it, you decide what we'll tell him and I've got your back, and so does Mom, I think." With that they both looked at Emma and she smiled. When Chuck pushed away the file that contained the materials for his part of the presentation, she understood what his conflict was, and that it was gone now, so she smiled again and nodded to show them that she'd stand with them on their position. They both smiled back at her and then Chuck glazed over a little as he mapped out what the alternative presentation would be.

When the two women wound up the history of the council and went to hand over to Chuck for the agreed presentation he stood up to say that they hadn't quite covered all the relevant history. Walking around the table he stood behind Emma and with his hand on her shoulder he explained that she'd been the CIA's top Analyst back when they blackmailed into working for them so that she could keep her daughter (motioning to Sarah), because she was brilliant and just about no-one could analyse intel and scenarios and plan probable or optimal outcomes like she could, once again motioning to Sarah he said that Sarah had inherited her mother's intelligence (and beauty he added as he squeezed her shoulder), and also had similar abilities in those areas. Then he went on to talk about his father and his ability to get into and extract information from systems around the world, and that he built equipment, systems and infrastructure to maximise their ability to get into systems and gather that intel. He also pointed out that while brilliant, his father's focus was more in the systems and information gathering than the analysis of that intel and planning what to do with it, but while he and his sister had inherited their father's intelligence, they didn't inherit his single mindedness and that gave both of them an advantage when it came to analysing the intel and mining it for possible outcomes and associations. Then he pointed out that they, with Sarah and her mother, were the ones who usually distilled the meaning of the intel they were getting and determined the directions to follow that intel and, ultimately, what actions would be required.

At that point he looked directly at the President and told him that that was the biggest benefit they could offer him, they could get the intel, determine intentions, dive down into the intel to determine what was happening and advise how best to address the issues, using both electronic and physical investigations. They had the best in the world at electronic infiltrations in their group, and they also had some of the best spies in the world to get intel by more traditional means. While the focus of some of their members was more in the more traditional intelligence or military areas, they were all skilled in information gathering, and they had the best in the world when it came to analysis and planning, his sister, wife, mother-in-law and himself in the strategic planning areas, and his mother, and the General in military or operational planning, which only came in when the rest of the operation had been analysed and planned properly for success (he added with a glance in their direction). He knew that those two were fuming behind him, but he ignored that as he continued, pointing out that while the people in their team were among, if not the best field operatives in the world, that was not where the real value of their group lay, the real value, as he'd said, was in the information and planning that they could provide.

He looked at Sarah and she nodded to indicate that her part was ready, so he went on to say that without the proper intel or putting in the proper planning, scenarios like this occurred and nodded to Sarah, who put up a video montage from the Volkoff take down operation, one that showed the pitched battles they'd had against almost overwhelming odds, fighting their way into facilities only to find that what they had come for had been removed, innocents being killed in the crossfire and used as human shields to hold up the incoming forces. Then it went on to shoe him, Casey and Sarah being shot in the back by members of the strike teams allocated to them, and finally the incident where his strike team tried to take him out with the RPG, and set off the charges used to mine the building, so that he jumped out of a fifth floor window and managed to be the only one to get out of the building alive. Sarah had set the video to hold with the image of him standing and looking at the collapsing building he'd just escaped. With that behind him he continued, saying that these events shouldn't have happened as they should have held off until they had the proper intel on Volkoff and the organisations providing the strike teams, he conceded that he was partly to blame as he'd allowed himself to be pressured into running the operation before his wedding (to get his mother out in time, he added with a smile in her direction), but he should have insisted that the operation be held until they DID have all the necessary intel. He waved his hand at the image behind him and said that somewhere between 130 and 160 people died in that building, and over half of them were probably innocents. While he didn't start the explosion, he held himself responsible for the deaths because he didn't insist on the proper planning to manage the situation, looking the President in the eye he offered the services of the group to assist him in preventing that sort of thing happening to the people of the United States.

While the President was thinking, he glanced at his mother and the General, his mother still looked angry, but the General was looking thoughtful, hopefully he had convinced her, at least, and the President of the true value of what they were offering. The President didn't take long to come to his decision, and he turned to Chuck to say that for the sake of Americans and people around the world, he would be honoured to work with them and assist them in their endeavours. He pointed out that he would be relying on them to identify and advise on issues arising from their investigations, but added (in the form of a question/request) that there may be times when he brought things to them from America or abroad? Chuck nodded, and said "Of course." At that, the President shook hands with Chuck in a symbol of "sealing the deal", and because time was getting tight, the General quickly ran him through their contact protocols and processes.

Jill stood in front of Chuck and Sarah and asked them what she'd gotten herself involved in? Before they could answer, Emma stepped up beside her to give her a hug and said "A family, your family." with a smile. Jill still looked dubious, but while she was processing, Emma stepped forward and reached up to hug Chuck, kissing him on the cheek when he bent down to meet her. While she had him at her level she looked him in the eye and told him that that was why they'd insisted that he and Sarah lead the Council, he was right and what he'd given the President was far better than what had been put together previously. He looked at his mother across the room and said "Not everyone agrees with you on that" to which Emma replied "Give her time to adjust, she spent over twenty years in an environment where she had to dominate or die, and could never think about admitting to being wrong, if she doesn't know it in herself now, she will come to understand what you did was right and what was pushed onto you was wrong." She made him look at her. "Your mother is more like Sarah than she is like you, but she's a loving, caring, thinking, fair woman, that's the woman I knew before she was taken away and I'm sure she's still in there, you managed to bring my daughter out of the shell that she was hiding in, if you're the man I know you are, you'll help your mother as well, but don't forget that she'll need time to let go of that shell, it was the only thing that kept her alive for a very long time." He just nodded with tears in his eyes as he hugged her.

The President came back to shake hands with all of them again, and after quick hugs from Jill, they left to meet the protective detail arriving to pick them up. When they'd gone the General came up to the three of them and put her hand on Chuck's arm. She smiled up at him as she said she didn't know what the hell he was doing when he threw out what they'd put together, but he was right, what they were proposing wasn't what the Council had to offer, what he'd described to the President was. Chuck looked at his mother standing across the room and Diane's face softened as she quietly told him "She'll come around, give her time."

**A/N: The Secret Service agent Jill Marin came from the movie Sentinel, FWIW**


	15. The Hunt

**My thanks to the 1%ers (the 1% of readers who bother to let this writer know what they think), and especially the one who makes the effort to do so all the time.**

**Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters not created here.**

In the two weeks that followed the meeting with the President, Mary argued with every proposal or direction that Chuck raised in meetings, and things got to the point where as soon as she started, he would stand and leave, with Sarah at his side. After the second time this happened, discussion in the room finished, but when Mary stood to leave the General commanded her to "Sit down!", she did so defiantly but looking around the room, she registered that they had all of the original members of the Council there, but no-one else. The general glared at her balefully for a minute before asking "What the hell do you think you're doing Mary?" Mary looked back at her defiantly and replied "He's out of control, he had no authority to change the Council's direction in our meeting with the President or dictate what we will be doing!" The General looked as though she was about to live up to her red headed temper as she looked back at her oldest friend, but her voice was controlled when she replied. "No authority? Just what do you think we were giving him, them, when we forced them to accept leadership of the Council?" Mary stuck her chin out defiantly as she said "He doesn't have the experience to make those sort of decisions, and neither does that girl." The second the words "that girl" were spoken, dripping with disdain, a thunderous slap rang out in the room, and everyone looked in shock at sweet, kind, gentle Emma, trying to think of when they had ever seen her angry, or hit anyone, before, but drawing a blank. The hit was a good one, though, as Mary was still reeling and trying to recover as Emma told her with cold, hard anger "Don't you ever speak about my daughter like that again!" Bryan stood and came to sit beside Emma, putting his arms around her, she wasn't crying (she was still too angry for that), but she needed his support.

The General looked at Mary as she waited for her to recover from the slap to hear what she was being told, and when she looked up to it she said "Not enough experience, let's see shall we?" She activated the big flat screen behind her and started putting records up on the screen. "We'll start with Agent Walker, as she has been active longer." with that she went over Sarah's record and achievements from when she was "recruited" out of high school by Graham, up to when she was allocated to Team Bartowski, pointing out that she had more successful missions and had achieved more than all the "experienced" agents in the room put together, and had single handedly stopped major international wars more than once. With that she went onto Team Bartowski, listing their missions and achievements (individually and together) over the period that they'd been together, and once again, the tally was far higher than anyone could have imagined. John Casey was instrumental in many missions, but the ones who were responsible for their remarkable achievements were Chuck and Sarah. She also pointed out that between them, they had stopped world war at least six times, probably more. When they'd gotten to the point where Chuck started his training, she gave up on the computer record and just talked, as they were all quite aware of what they'd done in that period.

She finished with "And let's not forget that this man, your son, successfully planned, organised and executed the operation that the world's intelligence communities couldn't for nearly twenty years, the systematic take down and removal of Volkoff Industries (primarily to ensure the release of you, his mother, from Alexei Volkoff), oh, and he managed to remove the Agent X persona to return the host, Hartley Winterbottom, safe and sound, something that you and your husband failed to do for twenty years." She looked Mary in the eye and said "Chuck and Sarah earned their positions as the leaders of the Council, and they've earned our trust and support to help them meet the responsibilities that we forced upon them" She faltered for a moment, and looking down at the table in front of her asked, half to herself "Are we ever going to stop forcing the responsibility of saving the world onto Chuck?" She firmed her shoulders at that and looked up at Mary again, telling her "At this moment, you are the biggest threat to the Council and the achievement of the goals that we set together, are you going to support the leaders that we all chose, or are you going to leave?"

Mary looked broken, and started to stand to leave but she was surprised by the hand on her arm that stopped her, Emma's hand. She looked at Emma but her eyes were on the General. "Diane, it's not right to force the decision like that, you have to give her a chance to make it right with Chuck." "and Sarah", Bryan said beside her (Emma nodded but didn't say anything to that, still looking Diane in the eye). The General nodded, and looking back to Mary she asked her if she wanted to make things right with Chuck and Sarah? The reply of "Yes" as Mary looked down was barely audible, but they heard it, and Emma squeezed her arm before Bryan pulled her to her feet and led her away. Stephen came to sit beside Mary and she collapsed into his arms, sobbing, as the others left the room.

When they left the conference room, the General and Emma went looking for Chuck and Sarah, and when they heard the furious pounding from the gym they had a fairly good idea of where Chuck was, at least. When they got there, Sarah was doing yoga on the mat near Chuck, while Chuck was in the process of knocking a heavy bag around wildly. They knew how much that bag (filled with tungsten shot) weighed, so they had an idea of how much force was being used to move it about like that. They stopped a safe distance away and called out to him, but they weren't getting through to him, so Sarah unfolded herself and stood to go to him and lay her hand on his shoulder (if anyone was safe to do that it was her, it was as if Chuck could feel her presence whenever she was near), Chuck immediately stopped hitting the bag and stood back, and she reached up to kiss him before pointing out that the General and her mother were trying to talk to him. Now that it was safe, they came over to tell him that his mother wanted a chance to sort things out with them, both of them, they'd had a talk after he left and she realised that she was at fault for the problems that had been going on. Chuck wasn't receptive at first, but Sarah told him that they had to give her a chance and he nodded. Emma stepped up to him and put her hand on his chest as she reminded him of what she'd told him about his mother needing a chance to let go of the shell that she'd been relying on to keep her alive while she was over there, when Chuck nodded at that, she said "That's what this is." When he nodded again, she smiled and stretched up to kiss him on the cheek.

It took Mary a while to be ready to try and talk to Chuck and Sarah, and in the meantime they still had to keep all their usual jobs, so they stuck with their usual schedules, morning "run", office from 8:00 'til 18:00 generally (with actual or cover client trips throughout the day), then home for training and Council work if they didn't have a government mission. They were working with Jill on the investigation into the Secret Service at the same time that they were investigating the NSA, CIA, Special Forces and Seals to determine where the orders to kill them in the Volkoff take down operation came from. They were also watching and interfering with any plans for other criminal organisations to try and fill the gap that Volkoff Industries left when it went down, so it wasn't like they were busy or anything.

To say that Sarah wasn't happy with the way things were was an understatement, they had this ridiculous workload, all that crap that her father's return had brought up, the current issues with Chuck's mother, and as soon as they returned from their honeymoon, her status had been officially amended from field agent to field analyst because of the pregnancy. The change of status meant that the only way she could go along on government missions was in the van in a support role, exactly what Chuck was trying to push her into on the Council missions, she wanted this baby too, and didn't want anything to happen it, but where the hell did it say in the fine print that she had to stop everything as soon as she got pregnant? The fact that she was being taken off active agent status also meant that Chuck had to be partnered with either Carina or Zondra on any infiltration missions, and while she trusted both of them with her life, not so much with Chuck, she'd seen and heard enough from both of them to know that both of them had the hots for him, even if Carina was her sister.

To take her mind off those things, she started looking through the files on the other five agents and other interesting types that came up when Carina searched for their siblings, partly because she was interested in what her siblings would be like, and partly because things had worked out so well with Jill (for the most part, she seemed to have the hots for Chuck too, and she had to be a gorgeous little brunette, just what they needed to come into their lives as Sarah was about to get fat and moody, whoever's up there, save me from slutty sisters, please!). Even more so, though, because with what was in front of them they'd be needing extra resources for the Council, especially as she'd be getting more and more useless as the pregnancy progressed. Like it or not, as Carina said their dear father's genes did seem to work in the spy game (even if he was a bastard), so she may be able to find some more good candidates on the list. She discarded the first two "brothers" she found on the list of agents, as their records showed that they were pretty much like Bryce, arrogant, wild and really only focussed on getting any woman they met in bed, not the sort of thing they needed in the group, there was one in the NSA who seemed to be smarter, more grounded and, well, evolved though, she'd put him aside for possible consideration.

The next file she found looked promising, one of her "sisters" was apparently a CIA Agent who seemed to be happily married, she had a good record and skills, and as she couldn't work with her husband this could help both of them, as being teamed up with Chuck would also protect her from male agents trying to get into her pants. When she dug up Kate's picture she was shocked, she even looked like a sister, almost a twin. Sarah quickly checked her mother's details and sure enough she was a blonde Polish woman, which could explain some of the similarities, but shit, the resemblance was uncanny. Sarah started the investigations into Kate Morgan (and her husband), along with Thomas Muller, the only decent male agent on the list and two other "brothers" in the military, John Price in Special Forces and Michael Collins in the Seals, if they checked out they may be able to help trace the corruption through their branches of the military, and going by their records they'd be handy if it came to a fight too, they were quite impressive on paper anyway.

One of the team's biggest worries was that their investigations into all the government agencies and bodies would converge into an investigation of another overarching organisation. Just as other criminals had tried to fill the vacuum left by Volkoff Industries, Chuck and the others had a disturbing foreboding that it was only a matter of time before they saw the signs that others had stepped up to fill the gap left by the Ring and the other organisations that they'd taken down. This foreboding was all the more worrying as they knew that they'd found fairly obvious gaps in the structures of those organisations when they took them down. Logic stated that if given forces and resources were allocated in one area (geographical, industry or other demographic), then similar resources would be allocated to other equivalent areas of the same demographic. Therefore, when Chuck looked at the patterns and saw holes in those structures (as that was the way his mind worked) that they hadn't taken down, he had to worry about where the resources that had been where those holes were had gone to. On top of that, they knew that all these organisations had had connections to those up in the stratosphere of government, but the team had always been blocked from following those links. Therefore, it was probable that the same government representatives would be still there with their hands out, looking for money and extra power, and prepared to give away whatever was asked to the ones who were offering that money and power.

When Kate, John, Thomas and Michael all checked out a far as any electronic records went, and all the follow ups they'd done, Sarah arranged to have "interviews" with all of them. She had Chuck accompanying her for Kate's, Bryan accompanying her for John's (as ex-Special Forces he may be able to smooth the way), and Casey accompanied her for Thomas's (he was also an ex-Marine, which was weird), and Michael's, as he'd had more to do with the Seals, and Michael happened to be part of one of Casey's strike teams in the take down operation.

When Sarah and Chuck turned up at Kate and Adam Morgan's apartment, they were a little nervous, Sarah and Carina talking to Jill had worked out OK, but this time they were trying to convince an agent and Operations Officer of the CIA to throw their hats in with them without knowing anything about them, and asking Kate to consider accepting a relatively long term re-assignment to Team Bartowski to work as Chuck's partner. Given all the jealousies and issues that they'd gone through themselves, they didn't know how well they'd do in convincing another couple this way. When Kate let them in they were a little disappointed to find that Adam wasn't there, and suggested that they come back later when he was, given the fact that the nature of some of what they wanted to talk to them about concerned both of them, but she waved that off, saying that he'd be home in half an hour.

So, Sarah launched into the part that Kate may want to actually tell her husband herself, the fact that her father was a douche who had kids all over the country by different women and that she and Sarah were actually half sisters. It took less work than Sarah had feared for Kate to accept what Sarah was telling her, though the fact that they pretty much looked like twins made the job easier. Kate was a tad perturbed that they'd managed to pull her DNA records on file and use them to get the confirmation of paternity, and their connection, but she'd heard of Agents Walker and Carmichael, and knew that they were the top dogs in the US Intelligence communities, so if anyone had access to pull that type of classified material, they did. She was interested and amused about Sarah's stories about Carina and Jill (she didn't mention Bryce at that time, she'd gone through enough over that in recent times and wasn't ready to take any more just now), and wasn't too unhappy to hear that their father was buried in a super-max prison for the rest of his life after Sarah told her about what he'd done.

When Kate's husband got home and introductions were made, he just stood there, looking from Kate, to Sarah and back. When Kate said "Surprise, I have a sister! Well, half-sister." he just looked at her and said "Yeah, I think I may have worked that out!" They gave Adam the Cliff notes version of how that happened (Kate could fill him in on the rest of the details later), and then they went into the other part of the reason that they were there. They explained that they were actually married, it wasn't a cover, and that Sarah was pregnant, after accepting the Morgans' congratulations, Chuck left Sarah to make the sales pitch for what they were proposing.

Sarah explained that her status had been changed to a field analyst as soon as she'd officially notified the CIA that she was pregnant, and that she was keeping the baby, which of course meant that Chuck had to get another partner for his missions. She also explained that while they had two other women agents in the team, one of whom being her half-sister Carina Miller (Kate and Adam's eyes went round at that, because Carina was infamous), she wasn't really comfortable with either of them doing infiltration missions with Chuck as, well, she half expected them to take advantage of the situation, much like male agents so often do (Kate nodded at that, looking uncomfortable). Sarah was a a little bent over, looking nervous at this point, but she looked up at Kate as she said. "That's why I'm hoping that you'll consider being re-assigned to the team on long term but temporary (or permanent, if you'd prefer) basis to be Chuck's partner on missions, especially infiltration missions, that way we don't have to worry about me killing my sister or friend, and we were thinking that it may be nice for you to be able to do missions without worrying about some agent trying to get into your pants, or any of the things that lead up to that?"

The Morgans looked at each other, and as they'd talked about how Kate had had to ward off (or fight off) advances from agents, he wasn't surprised to see from the look on her face that she wanted to do this. That made it simple, he just smiled and nodded, and Kate turned back to Sarah and said OK, to get a hug from her sister. The Morgans' only concern was that Adam was likely to get another overseas posting in the not too distant future, but they'd been apart for much of their marriage because the CIA generally wouldn't re-assign Kate to fit in with Adam's postings, so that wasn't anything new for them. Chuck and Sarah looked at each other and Sarah said that there was something that they could do to make sure that they could see each other quite often, but asked that they trust her to fill them in on those details later when they started asking questions. While they were there Chuck called the General and asked how soon she could start processing the paperwork to get Agent Kate Morgan temporarily re-assigned to team Bartowski, and passed on to the others that it would be started in the morning when he got off the phone. With that, the sisters hugged, Chuck and Adam shook hands and they left the Morgans to their evening. They'd mentioned the Council to them, but told them that they'd go into that later.

Sarah's meetings with her "brothers" went OK, too. Thomas was more "evolved", as she'd thought from his records, and was quite willing to come on board, he would be staying with his current assignment and hunting leads inside the NSA (any of Team Bartowski asking questions attracted too much attention), and also working with the team on Council matters. John and Michael were more gung ho than Thomas (well they were in elite military groups), but they weren't arrogant douches like Bryce or the others that she'd crossed off the list, once she'd convinced them of the paternity issue and she and Bryan or Casey gave them the sales pitch, they were both happy to come on board on the same basis that Thomas did, so she'd managed to get her siblings working with them to chase down corruption in the various groups, and also to be prepared to make an effort to become part of her family, between her brothers and especially Kate coming on board, Sarah was feeling pretty good about herself again for the first time since they got back from their honeymoon.

The day that Kate reported to the Hunter Security offices, she and Sarah had secretly decided to screw with everyone's heads, so they made sure that their clothes, hair, makeup, everything, was identical, they thought that even Chuck and Adam would have to take more than one look to tell them apart. Sarah arrived first and settled into Chuck's office with the door closed, watching the office out front on the monitors in there, and Kate came in five minutes later. When Chuck came out of Casey's office he smiled when he saw her, but stopped for another look, grinned and kissed her on the forehead. After everyone had been talking for about ten minutes, Kate asked Chuck if she could have a word alone, and he only just managed to get out "OK Honey, but we'll have to be quick so the wife doesn't find out." with a straight face. As it registered what he'd said, everyone else in the room turned to stare at him, and they heard peals of laughter coming from Chuck's office as the door opened and Sarah walked out, holding her stomach. Sarah couldn't talk and Kate just stood there grinning while the rest kept looking from one, to the other, stunned, so it was Chuck who officially introduced Agent Kate Morgan, who'd be joining the team for an indefinite period.

When things had settled down, they explained what Kate's role would be in the group (and when Sarah got withering looks from Carina and Zondra as they realised why Kate had been brought in, Chuck made a point of stressing MRS Morgan a few times, and explaining that it had been decided that it would be more comfortable for all concerned if his temporary partner while Sarah was out of the field shared his dislike for PDA). Sarah took it up again and explained that since they'd discovered the remarkable similarity between her and Kate, the option of using Kate to double for her for the period was being considered as it may simplify their cover, no-one in the general community knew about her pregnancy as yet, so it was possible that they could just continue with Kate playing her and no-one would be the wiser.

Of course, things got rather complicated when Mary picked that day to come in and make things right with Chuck and Sarah. She saw Kate first and grabbed her to start apologising, but when Kate tried to tell her she wasn't Sarah she thought she was playing her for a fool and got aggravated. When Chuck and Sarah saw this on the monitors down in Castle they ran up to find his mother working herself up to the state of starting a fight with her and Chuck shouted "Mom, Stop!". When Mary looked at him she did, indeed, stop, because she was stunned to see a second "Sarah" standing behind her son. Sarah stepped past Chuck and moved to her mother-in-law, saying that she was Sarah, and this other agent was Kate Morgan (as Kate had been trying to tell her). Mary looked from Sarah to Kate and back again, and asked why the CIA thought it was worth altering Agent Morgan's appearance to match her's. Sarah actually laughed at that as she said that no-one had altered Kate's face, she was born with it, she then explained that Kate was one of the siblings that Carina had discovered when she was investigating their father's indiscretions, and that it was a shock to all of them when they found out just how similar they were. She further went on to quietly explain (after looking around to make sure that Carina and Zondra weren't in earshot) how she hadn't been altogether comfortable with Carina or Zondra being Chuck's partner on infiltration missions, and as Kate was also married and didn't want to be going too far on missions either, it worked out for all of them for Kate to be assigned as Chuck's partner for a while. Mary looked from one to the other again and actually laughed, saying that it was good thing the only guys normally in this station were Chuck and Casey, as it was unlikely that most other guys in the business could be around two agents who looked like them without trying something.

With that Chuck brought them back to what Mary came for, saying "I believe that you wanted to talk to us Mom?" She nodded and started to say that they could do it another time but Chuck cut her off, saying that this needed to be done, so they left Kate with Carina, Zondra and Casey and took Mary home for a talk. Once they were comfortably settled at home, drinks in hand, Chuck prompted Mary to start.

Mary looked down into her drink for a while and then said "I'm a mess." Chuck started to say something but Sarah put her hand on his leg and he stayed quiet. "I was in that world too long, I couldn't show weakness and the only acceptable way of dealing with dissension was to crush it, if anyone questioned Volkoff, my job was to shoot them then and there, if anyone questioned me, if I didn't knock them down or hurt them, or more, it would be perceived as weakness and I would have at least half a dozen others trying to see how much they could get away with straight away so they could show Volkoff that they were stronger than me to get my job. I was a woman trying to hold onto one of the top positions in a culture where women only had two roles, wives or whores, so I had to be ruthless to keep control, and to keep my position. I did terrible things on a weekly or daily basis, and I think I stopped feeling anything about them over fifteen years ago." She looked up at them before continuing "I don't know how to function out here in the real world, my every reaction has been engrained by the culture of Volkoff's world, so when I see a threat, like my brilliant son or his equally brilliant and wonderful wife, I have to try to crush it. While you were working for us, for me (in my mind at least), I could handle some questions, just, but when we voted you into the role of our leaders (and I was wholeheartedly behind that), you became a threat and the conditioning of Volkoff's world kicked in again, that was why I was attacking you, and I don't know how to stop it." She was quiet for a minute and then said "I think I need to leave for your sakes."

This time Sarah didn't stop him when Chuck went to speak. "No! It cost everyone too much to bring you home for you to give up and disappear now, and in seven months or so you're going to have a grandchild, which I DO expect you to be here to be doting over!" Chuck reached out to grasp his mother's hands, continuing in a softer voice." "Ellie and I need you, Dad needs you, and the Council needs you." Sarah interjected softly at that point "And so do my mother and I, and the rest of the people that love you, none of us are ready to give up on you." Chuck gave her a grateful smile before he continued. "We know that it will take you time to get over this, and we'll do what we can to help you, but I, we, need you to stay so that we can work through it." Mary looked up, hope in her eyes for the first time as he went on. "If you don't think you can hold those reactions in the meetings, if you want you can sit them out, or we can set up the video conferencing so you can receive only, and text anything you need to say in to us or someone else to bring up, we'll do whatever you need to make it work. We love you and want to help you, please let us." Mary couldn't talk at that point, she just nodded as she collapsed into her baby boy's strong arms to cry. Sarah rubbed her back gently before she left them alone for a while.

Mary had recovered a little by the time the others got home from the office, which was good because they were quite boisterous when they came in. They knew what had been going on, so as soon as they came in the first stop for Ellie and the other girls was to hug Mary (except Kate, of course, she didn't know Mary past the crazy woman who'd accosted her as soon as she walked in the door), Casey gave her a nod, but she knew what that meant from him. After that, Carina threw a bag at Sarah, she caught it easily but when she'd pulled out nothing other than a collection of tees and tanks (and shorts) in assorted styles and colours with SARAH across the front or back (or both), she looked up with a question in her eyes. Across the room, Kate pulled a handful of similar clothes out of the bag in her hand with KATE on them, and it all made sense in a twisted Carina way. Looking at Carina she asked "Do you really expect us to wear these?", but it was Zondra who answered "Yep, until you get big, we can't tell you apart otherwise, and if you expect us to spend all our time trying to work it out, well good luck with that. Wear them or we'll get your names tattooed on both of you." Sarah looked at Kate and said "The scary thing is that she's actually serious about that last part, so?" Kate nodded and they went off to the bedrooms, coming back about ten minutes later in comfortable clothes and their label gear.

When they were back, it was the start of a fun night, all the more so because Carina had called Jill to come over to meet her "new" sister too. There were plenty of logistic and other issues to go over, but they could wait, that night was about getting to know each other.

**A/N: Yeah, I went with Shutupnkissme's suggestion because it just fit so well, I really don't know why I hadn't already thought of it. **

**Looks like I may have been too subtle again though, to get Kate's background, check out 24: Live Another Day. The brothers you can blame on me, they're my creation.  
**


	16. Adjustments

**As usual, no rights to any characters portrayed, and thanks to my 1%ers.**

When Kate was woken by the soft knock on the door some time before dawn, she was crouching on the floor behind the bed, gun in hand, before she was even awake enough to work out where where she was. Looking around the room quickly she remembered that she was staying in the spare room in Ellie's apartment. As her head cleared she responded with a "Yes?" and Ellie asked through the door whether she wanted to join them for their morning run? When she heard Ellie's voice she stood and headed for the door (leaving her gun on the night stand), and she opened the door just as Ellie finished to say "What?"

Ellie was standing there in workout gear with an apologetic look on her face, and she explained that they always went for a run first thing (not missing the look that Kate sent out the window to the dark outside), and she just wanted to ask whether Kate felt like joining them? When Kate took another look, she could see the lights on in the apartments across the courtyard, and that Chuck, Sarah, Carina and Zondra were doing Yoga, Tai Chi or something in their living rooms, she wiped her hand over her face and said "Yeah, I guess?" Ellie smiled and said that she'd see her in the living room when she was changed, at which Kate stopped to realise that she didn't know whether she'd brought any gear with her, when Ellie saw that look cross her face she pointed out that there was bound to be something in the gear that Carina gave her, and she nodded with a smile and went to look.

When Kate came down five minutes later, she felt that she looked stupid in running shorts with KATE across her arse and a plain tank top, but it wasn't like people were going to see her at this ridiculous hour anyway. Ellie was doing Tai Chi and nodded to the breakfast counter where there was a coffee waiting for her (she'd even remembered how she had it from the night before), and after a few sips she was starting to feel more human, so she started warming up, too. She'd only got a few minutes in before they heard doors opening up across the courtyard and voices outside, so they headed out too. Sarah looked surprised when she saw her, and asked if she knew what she was letting herself in for? Kate looked around, taking in the grins on Carina's and Zondra's faces and the crestfallen look on Ellie's and said "Apparently not, what am I letting myself in for?" Sarah looked serious as she asked how far Kate normally ran? "About five miles" "In what time?" "About 40 – 45 minutes usually." "Do you do parkour?" "Not really, tried a few moves but I haven't really gotten into it." "Well we normally do ten to fifteen miles in an hour to an hour and a half with a lot of parkour practice worked into that." "Are you kidding?" "Sorry, no, you can sit this out if you like, or we can go a bit easier and give you a chance to work up to it, like we had to with these two." (waving at Carina and Zondra) Kate thought for a little bit as she took that in and then made a decision and said that she'd like to try, if she was going to be in this team she had to get up to speed somehow.

With that Sarah nodded, and they took off. Sarah stayed back with Kate as the others took off at their normal pace, Kate tried to keep up but they were out of sight within a mile, and she noted that Sarah was hardly breathing heavy as she called ahead to tell the others to back off the pace. As they ran, Sarah was telling her about the training regime they used, but the very fact that she could talk while they were running like that was making Kate feel inadequate. They caught up with the others as they got to a park, and the way the others were flowing over and through obstacles amazed Kate, Sarah have her a few pointers on some of the simpler moves, which she found weren't that hard to do when she tried, and they stayed with the others for the rest of the hour's run, getting in eight miles. When they got back to the apartments, Kate wanted to collapse but Ellie made her do at least a ten minute cool down session of Tai Chi before she'd let her go have a shower. When she came out of the shower and went down to see about breakfast, Sarah was sitting at the breakfast counter with a coffee in her hand and grinned at her, saying "Welcome to the team."

Over breakfast (Ellie was still the best cook of the lot of them, even with the culinary skill sets in the Intersect databases), Sarah explained the schedule that the team normally followed, and also that while they were working out whether Kate was going to be playing Sarah's double, one of them would really have to be wearing a wig whenever they were both out and about, people seeing both of them in their natural state could cause problems. That led into the transport issues, it would cause questions if they suddenly had a new car around, so one of them would be driving her car while the other went with Chuck or someone else (and wore the wig), she left the choice up to Kate but pointed out that her car may be a handful until you got used to it, so Kate elected to wear the wig and go with Chuck that first day at least. With that Sarah nodded and went to wash up the dishes, but Ellie waved her away, so she hugged both of them and went to leave, stopping only to point out to Kate that there was a lot of hugging in this group (hooking a thumb back at Ellie as she said that it started with Ellie and Chuck, but they pretty much all did it now) when she was surprised by the hug, Kate nodded slowly, but this was another thing that she was going to have to get used to.

In between the other events, Sarah had also managed to track down and talk to another one of her sisters who was on Carina's agent list, Diana Berrigan was an FBI Special Agent based in New York, she'd gotten some of her own back story from her mother, and was quite interested to hear the rest from Sarah, as her mother had only known about as much about that bastard as the rest of the women he'd preyed upon. When she'd found out that Diana played for the same team, she'd asked Chuck to come with her, because she wasn't sure whether Carina would start talking about girl on girl action and she didn't want anything to mess up getting Diana on board. But her Chuck charmed Diana the way he did everyone, no matter what their orientation, and she jumped at the chance to help root out corruption in the FBI and other branches of the government, so they had another sister on board.

With the changes to the team, there was a revision of the code names, now that she was finally back from the cold and with Stephen, Mary had wanted her's to be changed to Vixen (that was probably mostly to reassure Stephen, but as long as it made them comfortable, no-one was inclined to argue), and Jaguar was re-allocated to Diana, while Jill got Bobcat, Kate got Cheetah, John got Mongoose, Thomas got Wolverine, and Michael got Otter.

Kate was working hard to fit into the team, but the gruelling physical and skills training wasn't the hardest part, this team wasn't like any other that she'd ever seen (or heard about for that matter). On top of that there was a whole 'nother agenda and allegiance involved, and she was concerned when she started noticing things on her first day working with the team. When she saw what was going on with Kate, Sarah kicked herself, they'd been planning on filling her in the night before, but with Mary turning up and them having to deal with that, and then everyone turning up for a party, it had slipped their minds, she pulled Kate aside and quietly promised to tell her everything that night, but they couldn't talk in the office as they couldn't control the surveillance devices there. Kate reluctantly agreed to wait, she felt she could trust Sarah, but this was big, and if she didn't get the proper answers she'd have to report it.

As soon as they got home, they all got changed and took Kate down to the bunkers, she stopped and looked around the underground base (which was far more impressive than Castle), and asked "What is this?" She turned at the response of "This is us trusting you." to find herself face to face with the woman that she'd been watching on screen for the past day and a half in briefings, General Diane Beckman, along with another woman of a similar age, who was introduced as Emma Burdon. They both looked from her, to Sarah and back for a while until Emma apologised and said that it was just hard to grasp, seeing another woman who looked so much like her little Sammie. Kate looked confused and Sarah touched her arm, explaining that Samantha was her birth name, and Emma was her mother. Kate looked at Sarah in surprise, but looking back at Emma, she could see the resemblance.

With that, the four women and Chuck went into the conference room. Before they could get into the discussion about the Council, though, they had to explain to Kate how the hell the General was there just over an hour and half after she'd been watching her talking from DC over a video conference. Chuck grinned when the women just looked at him when the question came up, as technical explanations always went to him. He told Kate that they'd prove this to her as soon as possible, but for now, he asked her to accept that what he was telling her was the actual truth, Kate nodded slowly to show that she was prepared to listen, and Chuck brought up a picture of the Valkyrie and the Falcons leaving their wedding site. He identified the planes (one Valkyrie that would carry at least eighteen passengers plus some cargo and six Falcons which could each carry two people and some bags), and told her that these planes all had VTOL and almost hypersonic (over Mach 4.5 maximum, over Mach 4 cruise) capabilities, and inter-continental range, so the trip from DC to LA took just over an hour. Kate looked dubious, but he reiterated that they would prove this to her as soon as possible, and by the way, this was what Sarah was talking about when she told them that it would be possible for her to see Adam often if he was posted overseas again, at that Kate's nod was more positive, as Sarah had been confident when she made that promise to them.

Once the explanation of her trip was out of the way, the General started the description of what the Council was, where it came from and what they were trying to do. The others stepped in where required to explain some elements of the story, and within a three hours they'd finished up to the point of them working for/with the President to investigate the corruption all around him, and the General told the story of how a Secret Service agent came in when she was talking to the President to try and find why their bugs weren't working. They were getting better at telling the story now, getting practice as they brought people in meant that the delivery was a lot easier. Kate looked relatively convinced when they finished, but she was still a bit dubious about all the fantastic things she was being told about, so Chuck pulled one of his pistols from the holster in the back of his belt, checked the safety and slid it across the table to her. Just like Jill, she had never seen anything like it before, after looking it over for a while she asked if it was real, so he stood up and told her to bring it along, Sarah knew that it was part of his way to gain Kate's trust, and Kate was HER sister, but seeing him walk out the room in front of her when she was carrying a loaded weapon freaked her out.

They went to the range and Chuck set it up for Kate to try out the pistol on an array of hard and soft targets, he also placed a pistol like the one she normally used on the counter in front of her with a few magazines so that she could compare what the "normal" pistol was doing against the Hunter pistol. She used the range for the next fifteen to twenty minutes, and was convinced that the Hunter pistol was real, and what's more it was a far more effective weapon than the ones she normally used. When she was finished she asked if all their gear was this effective? When Chuck and Sarah simply nodded, she was convinced. After that, they had to get the General back to DC, so they decided to use the trip for the proof that Chuck had promised Kate. The General wasn't comfortable wearing the "flight suits" that they had to use with the Falcons, so she'd been brought over in the Valkyrie, so that made it simple to take Kate for a ride, Chuck and Sarah went as the pilots, and Kate was travelling in style for her first supersonic flight, across the country and back at over Mach 4 in a bit over two hours.

While this was going on, Sarah's brothers and sisters were feeding information about what they were finding out about the organisations that they were working for, so Chuck and the others could feed it into their models to try and map out what the other side was doing, and hopefully who they were. They were also running constant online investigations to dredge up whatever they could from the systems they accessed (just about everything out there), so there was always a mountain of intel to wade through and analyse.

One panic that they weren't expecting though was the phone call that Chuck got from Jeff Barnes. When he heard his voice, Chuck almost hung up. Jeff had been pretty much perpetually off his face for as long as Chuck could remember, he wasn't a bad guy when he wasn't drunk or high, or playing sleazy Lester's creepy wing man, but the problem was that that pretty much never happened, and the few times it did he slipped back into one or all of the above almost straight away. What delayed Chuck's thumb on the disconnect button was the fact that Jeff was almost coherent, and it wasn't one of the usual things that kept him from being so, it was panic. Chuck managed to get him calmed down enough for him to tell him that a group of guys had come to the Buy More looking for him and Sarah, and as soon as they started to make threatening noises, Lester had given them Ellie's name, address, and where the hospital that she worked at was and told them to ask her where he was, and the guys just had left to head over there. Chuck had to calm himself quickly to thank Jeff and tell him that he'd come to see him as soon as he had a chance, then rang off.

He swore and called out that they had to get to Ellie's hospital, grabbing his operations bag from the cupboard and running out the door with everyone on his heels. They all piled into Chuck's van and he took off, not knowing about the van's, or Chuck's capabilities, it was terrifying for Kate to be in a van doing over 150 MPH through traffic on city streets, with the only sound the screeching tyres and the other traffic noises. She could see Sarah stripping off and changing into a black one piece suit in the front seat, and Casey, Carina and Zondra trying to do the same in the back with her, but they weren't doing as well. It looked like Sarah had more practice at it, or maybe the skirt she was wearing may have been easier get out of. As he drove (after trying to call Ellie with no answer) Chuck explained what Jeff had told him on the phone, and that their priority was to get to Ellie before these other guys did. He could see that Sarah would be in her suit properly by the time they got there and Casey should be about right by then, too, but Carina and Zondra would need a minute when the van stopped so he laid out the plan. Sarah and Casey would secure the front entrance when they got there and Carina and Zondra to secure the rear as soon as they were ready, while he went in to get Ellie (she'd have the bag with her gear inside). He glanced at Kate without any decent protection and told her to stay in the van, where it was safe. Sarah snickered "You've been waiting years to have a chance to say that to someone else, haven't you?" and Casey gave a grunt that was almost a laugh. Looking back at Kate, she added. "Seriously though Kate, please stay in the van like Chuck said, the gear we've got will stop anything these guys have without trouble, but we haven't had a chance to get you fitted up yet, so if you're out there when the fight starts you'd be far too much at risk. Stay here until Chuck gets back with Ellie so we can bug out quickly."

With that she pulled on a helmet that appeared to seal into the rest of the suit along with the matching gloves, and she was ready. Casey was a few minutes behind her but he had his suit sealed up by the time Chuck pulled up at the main entrance as well. Chuck reached over to squeeze Sarah's hand and then took of, running into the hospital. Sarah gave a thumbs up gesture and then Sarah and Casey suddenly vanished. Kate could see their outlines but they were pretty much invisible if they didn't move quickly, the doors opened and closed quickly and then she was alone in the van with the two women who were swearing as they struggled to finish getting their suits on. Carina took the time to reinforce what Sarah had said about Kate staying inside, as she was unprotected outside the van, then she pulled her helmet and gloves on, and as soon as Zondra was ready, they activated their suits' camouflage and jumped out of the van as well, Kate could only follow their path by the signs that they knocked into things as they ran to the side alley to get back to the rear entrance to cover it. Kate tried to spot Sarah and Casey, but while she thought that she could see something in the most logical locations for them to be standing to cover the entrance, she couldn't be sure.

About five to ten minutes after everyone had left the van (time got hazy with the weird things going on), two SUVs raced up towards the hospital entrance, but they suddenly stopped when their tyres were shot out. Eight men piled out of the immobilised SUVs and started shooting indiscriminately. They had no idea where the shots that disabled the SUVs came from, so they were just shooting wildly in hope of getting the ones who shot at them. Sarah or Casey (or both) was taking the attackers out one by one, then something just demolished both SUVs, it looked like they'd been taken out by a cannon. Three of the men were still staggering around, firing at anything that moved until someone took them out with surgical precision.

Just then, Chuck and Ellie came running out of the hospital and jumped into the van, and soon after the doors opened and shut again before Sarah and Casey "appeared" in their black outfits, Sarah saying "I've recalled Carina and Zondra, we had two SUVs here, and they had the same out back." Chuck looked at her and she just said "All taken out", which got a grim nod from him. Then the door opened and shut again and Carina and Zondra "appeared", pulling off their helmets as Chuck drove off. No-one spoke on the way back to the office other than to ask Ellie if she was OK. When they arrived, they started to head into the office, before they realised that Chuck was heading the other way towards the Buy More. Casey called out to stop him and he did, but stood where he was so that Casey had to come to him. Casey sent the others inside as he went to Chuck to try and talk some sense into him, but Chuck wouldn't budge, the only concession that Casey could get out of him was that he agreed to wait five minutes for Casey to get changed and come with him. When he got from him that Casey ran, Carina saw him running for the door so she held it open for him. He ran past the girls, shedding his suit on his way into his office and was coming back out the door less than a minute later, clothes mostly on and hopping as he pulled on his shoe, Carina held the door for him again and this time he managed to nod thanks to her as he passed, doing up his belt as he ran to catch Chuck before he turned and headed off again.

By the time they'd crossed the car park, Casey had mainly straightened himself up and he asked what the plan was before they reached the Buy More. He grabbed Chuck's shoulder to force him to stop (which took a fair amount of effort) when he heard "Thank Jeff, kill Lester", because Chuck gave every impression of being totally serious. Casey hissed at him. "You can't go in there and kill him in front of everyone!" "He sent them after Ellie! He wasn't forced, he just gave them all the details of how to find her without them even asking!" "I know, but you still can't kill him HERE, how about we talk to Jeff and get the security videos here, and have a talk to Lester somewhere else that's quieter?" Chuck's rage was fading enough by then to see that he wouldn't get away with wreaking his revenge for what Lester did here, and to realise that if he did what he wanted to at the moment it would haunt him forever, so he nodded. Casey could see reason back in his eyes now, so he let his shoulder go and they proceeded on into the Buy More.

Once inside, they split up, Casey heading to Big Mike's office to get the security videos, and Chuck heading to the Nerd Herd desk. Jeff was standing there, looking down at something under the counter, and it was obvious who, or rather what, was under there, so Chuck leant over the counter and deciding on a better path, quietly told Lester "If I ever find you after I leave here, you will die, you offered up my sister freely, with no care for what they would do to her, and without them even asking. If you have a shred of intelligence in that filthy little rat brain, you will be North of the border by the end of the day, and you will never set foot in this country again, because if you do, I will know, and I will find you. Run far, and run fast because you don't want me to catch you, I can promise you that." With that, he turned to Jeff and in a very different voice he thanked him, because his phone call had saved his sister. He asked Jeff to come over to the apartment for dinner so that they could talk about what happened and he could thank Jeff properly for what he'd done. A little stunned, Jeff asked what night? As Chuck was caught out, he just said "tonight?" and Jeff agreed. There was something different about Jeff, for one thing he was sober, and for another he was behaving like a decent human being. He seemed lonely and it looked like he REALLY didn't want to be there, so a talk would probably be good for him, quite aside from the fact that Chuck wanted to find out what had happened to make him change like this. Casey came back with a disk, so Chuck told Jeff that he'd see him tonight and they left.

When they got back to the office, they went through the security videos, but they didn't give them anything other than a few flashes on who some of the men (presumably) used to be, which was CIA, and the registration of the SUVs (actually, those came from the suit cams from the hospital), so they didn't know whether they'd come after them because of their current investigations, or because of what the team had done previously to organisations like Fulcrum or the Ring. One thing wasn't certain though, whether they'd passed on the information about Ellie to anyone else, information that they wouldn't have had if it wasn't for that disgusting rodent. That made Casey remember Chuck's parting comment to Jeff and asked him about it (which was good because he'd totally forgotten), so Chuck explained that he'd asked him to a thank you dinner that night. Sarah and Ellie looked at him and he raised his hands defensively, saying that he wasn't entirely thinking straight but they owed him for Ellie's safety, and he was different. At Casey's thoughtful nod when he said that last they let it go, and Ellie started making plans for the dinner, so they could get what they needed and to work out how soon they'd have to get moving to get it done in time (not that Chuck had given him a time so they just worked on the time that they'd always had their "do"s in the past, banking on Jeff doing the same). Chuck and Ellie left about an hour after that to do the shopping for dinner and to collect Ellie's van from the hospital.

When they got back to the apartments Chuck made Ellie stay in her van while he checked out the area, but if there was another team around they were good, so he quickly grabbed the groceries and Ellie grabbed their bags and they went in to start dinner. By the time the others got home nearly all the work for dinner was done, and there was just waiting for it to cook and setting the table to be done. Sarah pulled Chuck aside and asked if her husband was back? Sarah reminded him that Casey's coms were on (but not his, as he'd turned it off, she noted with an accusing look) as they headed for the Buy More, and they'd heard what he'd said, THAT wasn't her husband, so she wanted to know whether the man she loved and married was back? Chuck sighed and nodded, telling her what he'd done (and making a note to check to see whether Lester had left the country), he didn't try to make an excuse, just explained that the rage to hear that the little worm had thrown Ellie out as bait without reason made him want to kill the little bastard. Sarah nodded, she could understand that, but she'd been frightened when she'd heard how far he'd gone from himself when she heard him say what he did. Chuck pulled her into his arms and apologised, promising that he was back.

Dinner was ready in time, and Jeff called from the front gate soon after it was done, they buzzed him in and when he arrived they sat down to dinner. Conversation was kept light at the table, Sarah introduced Kate as her twin sister who had been backpacking around the world for the past few years and who had just turned up at her mother's to find that she'd missed her sister's wedding, so she was here to catch up for a while. Jeff had seen Carina before (the fact that he remembered her clearly was interesting to those who'd known him though), and Zondra was introduced as another friend who'd come back into their lives a while back, and was working with them now.

Once dinner was done, they settled down in the lounge room to catch up, they were hesitant to offer Jeff alcohol, but it would have appeared strange not to, so he was nursing a glass of scotch as they talked. Chuck only managed to hold off for about fifteen minutes before he blurted out "What happened to you?" Jeff was confused and set aback at that so Chuck tried to explain himself, pointing out that Jeff had been, well he had been a mess as long as he'd known him, but now he was a different man. Jeff nodded, but looked troubled and didn't say anything for about thirty seconds before he came out with "Lester". It was Chuck's turn to look confused now, so Jeff explained. With Lester's need to always have him under his control, Lester had been slipping him various drug cocktails to keep him out of it and malleable for pretty much as long as he'd known him, about ten years now. Jeff admitted that when he'd met Lester he was to blame for the state he was in because his mother had just been sent to prison and he was wasted all the time, but when he started to come out of that, apparently Lester had decided that he didn't like not having a puppet for a sidekick and he started slipping him things to keep him where he wanted him.

That only changed a couple of months back when one of the stunts that Lester put him up to went badly wrong and he'd ended up in Intensive Care. They'd been shocked that he was alive with the drugs he had in his system and after they'd patched him up, one of the doctors apparently pulled some strings and got him put into a rehab ward until they'd flushed everything out of his system. The thing that really surprised them was that he wasn't going through any withdrawal symptoms, which implied that he wasn't the addict they'd first thought him to be. When he was clean, they asked him about what drugs he was taking, and why, but he knew nothing about any of the serious drugs that had been in his system, and eventually when they decided that he was safe, he was released and he went back to work. Because he was totally clean for the first time in ages, the next time Lester tried to slip something into his coffee he tasted it and threw it away. When he cornered Lester about it, he didn't even try to deny it, he just said that he couldn't let Jeff pull away from him so he had to keep him where he belonged (Ellie, Sarah and Casey turned to look at Chuck at that, because it was the sort of thing that Morgan had always been saying to Chuck, maybe things could have been worse with him if he hadn't disappeared). When Jeff asked him if he realised that the cocktails that they found in his system could have, and in fact should have, killed him? Lester just shrugged and said that he had to take what he could get his hands on, obviously not caring at all. Since then, Jeff had been trying to keep away from Lester, and was testing everything before he ate or drank anything, but he couldn't get away from the Buy More because no-one else would take him. They all sat there without a word when he finished his story, stunned that the little bastard would do that to him (though to be honest, the ones who'd known him weren't that surprised). Ellie went to Jeff to hug him, which was a shock to Jeff but not at all unwelcome, and Chuck looked thoughtful.

After thinking for a few minutes, Chuck got up and left the room, returning quickly with a laptop that he put in front of Jeff, interrupting Jeff's raving about what a sweet machine it was to ask him if he could fix the problems in the program there (pointing to an open window on the screen). Jeff nodded and pulled the laptop to his, well, lap, concentrating on the screen for about ten minutes with intermittent bursts of furious typing, once he'd kicked off the compiler he handed the laptop back to Chuck, commenting on a number of areas where the functions weren't optimal, so hopefully it would run a bit cleaner now, Chuck nodded thoughtfully as the compiler was running, and ran the program when it was done, testing a few functions before grinning and looking up at Jeff to ask "How would you like to work for us Jeff?" Everyone in the room looked at him, wondering whether he'd gone crazy so he explained, waving at the laptop he told them that Jeff had just fixed (and optimised) the program he'd been working on in ten minutes, that was pretty much on par with what he or his father could do, and a hell of a lot better than just about anyone else. Looking at Sarah and Casey he said that Jeff had always been really good at fixing difficult things, even when he was off his face, that was how he'd kept his job all those years, otherwise he would have been thrown out ages ago for the way he was (adding "Sorry Jeff" to him as he said that, but Jeff just nodded), he looked at Sarah and told her that her mother wasn't the only brilliant person stuck in a small town with no chance of a proper education and she nodded slowly, getting his point. Looking at Sarah, Casey and Ellie and seeing tacit agreement for what he was doing, he turned back to Jeff and repeated his question, and this time, seeing that he was serious, Jeff answered with a resounding "YES!, Oh god, yes!"

After that, they worked out the basic details, Casey took Jeff to get what things he had from where he was living, because he'd be moving into the spare room in Casey's apartment, Casey would also go with him the next day when he went to the Buy More to hand in his resignation, to make sure that nothing happened to him. While Casey was off with Jeff, Ellie, Sarah and Chuck talked for a while about the decision, and when they'd had time to think about it, the girls remembered some incredibly sweet moments of what must have been the real Jeff shining through, so they were more OK with what was happening than they had been at first.

**A/N: Diana Berrigan is another borrowed character, she was in White Collar, and yes, I know that many don't share my opinion of Jeff, but in my view he was one of the more maligned characters in the series, he showed moments of insight, brilliance and sweetness throughout and I think they were trying to change his character to bring him up towards the end.**


	17. Full House

**In case anyone has been getting confused, this is where we sit at the moment, there are eight of "Jack Burton"s children working with the Council, Sarah Bartowski (nee Walker)- CIA, Carina Miller – DEA assigned to Team Bartowski, Jill Marin – Secret Service, Kate Morgan – CIA, Diana Berrigan – FBI, Thomas Muller – NSA, John Price – Special Forces, and Michael Collins – Navy Seals, they've also co-opted Frank Martin – ex British Special Forces, and Jeff Barnes, ex Buy More to work with them, along with the General's daughter Josie, and Casey's daughter Alex. These were added to the six original members of the Council, Mary, Diane, Bryan, Stephen, Emma and Roan, and Chuck, Casey, Ellie and Zondra who'd joined along with Sarah and Carina. Oh, and they have made a deal with the POTUS to help him identify and root out the corruption in his administration and the organisations working for him.**

**NB: If you think that you're seeing a trend with the borrowed (women) characters, you're right, they're the strongest, smartest women that I could find in roles in the right agencies, and all beautiful of course.**

**As usual, no rights to any characters not created here, and thanks to my 1%ers for their support.**

With Kate and Jeff moving in, it was pretty much full house in the apartments, there was one spare bedroom in Chuck and Sarah's and also studies that could be used to put people up in their's and Casey's apartments, but other than that, all rooms at the inn were taken (though the others wondered what was taking Ellie and Casey so long to see what they'd all been seeing for some time now).

The rest of the week was taken up with the fallout from the attack on the hospital. Chuck checked on Lester first thing the next morning, and sure enough, Lester Patel had flown to Canada at 8:00 the night before, just to make sure, he added him to all the terrorist and other watch lists (including the sexual predators lists). Casey had taken Jeff into the Buy More to clean out his locker and hand in his resignation as soon as they expected Big Mike to be there. Big Mike tried to tell Jeff that he couldn't resign because Patel had just disappeared, but he couldn't muster his usual overbearing threats because the way that Casey was standing over him, looking at him, scared him shitless. Therefore, he accepted Jeff's resignation with the feeble comeback of "Don't expect to get a reference from Buy More after you've deserted us like this!"

The cleanup of the "terrorist" attack at Ellie's hospital was a bigger problem, there hadn't been a chance to recover any of the bullets, so the authorities now had an additional 25 – 30 10mm slugs that they could attempt forensic comparison on, and they already had a sizable sample that had been accumulating from the Council missions that they had been doing over the past eighteen months. The mutterings about a clandestine government agency taking out enemies of the State had been getting increasingly louder for over a year now, and the (ironically, honest for once) denials from the government did nothing to quell those rumours, if anything they helped convinced people of what was happening.

The fact that none of the team who were wearing the tac suits in the incident showed up on any hospital security footage helped, and Chuck had doctored any footage necessary to remove any records of the additional door openings and closings on the van or delays, so all the footage showed was the van pulling up, Chuck running into the hospital to get his sister, her running out with him and them driving off, the story that they came out with was that his wife had had a fall and he came to get his sister in a panic to look after her. The question of why he didn't bring her in was explained away as years of his sister's instructions not to move an accident victim as you may aggravate their injuries. With Chuck and Ellie's well known emotional temperaments, people at the hospital were quite prepared to accept that story, and it also covered Ellie's calling in to say that she wouldn't be in for a few days as she was looking after Sarah, just in case. The General of course organised a clean-up of the site, but the police had arrived too quickly to keep all the evidence out of their hands. There was some suspicion being thrown the way of Chuck and the team, but they'd engineered a delay into the Surveillance feeds upstairs that they had turned on most of the time they were there, so when Chuck got back he staged an alternative version of the phone call and him leaving, alone, and the others following after, so they replaced the actual event with that before the feed went off to the agency systems. They were also playing on the emotional and erratic reputation that they'd built for Chuck, which made it believable that he'd run out without checking with his partners when his sister was in danger. Overall, they thought that they were in a pretty good space on the incident, their main worry was that they'd added to the forensic evidence that the police had of their weapons.

They told Jeff that they'd have to remodel the office to make a space for him there (something he saw for himself when Casey brought him back there before taking him home after they handed in his resignation), but they weren't prepared for his response to that, as he excitedly asked whether he'd be working in the spy lair? Chuck's response didn't do much to dispel his suspicions "What, no, spy lair, we don't have a spy lair!" Jeff came back with "I've known that you guys were spies for ages, I even had it all mapped out, hey, I've got it upstairs, hold on a sec" As he ran up to his room they looked at each other, wondering what they'd gotten themselves into, or more to the point, what Chuck had gotten them into. When Jeff came back down he spread the paper out over the table as he explained the connections he'd found and the answers he'd come up with. Once again, they looked at each other with even greater dread, as he had indeed put everything together, he'd hardly missed a thing and that was back when he was off his face most of the time, his investigative instincts were apparently right up there with his intelligence, Jeff would either be a godsend, or a curse. They were banking on him being the former, but they were in big trouble if they were wrong.

Chuck, Sarah and Casey asked Jeff for a chance to talk a few things over and moved outside to work out how to handle this, Chuck wanted to bring him on-board and Sarah was inclined to support him, even Casey, while not totally on-board, conceded what Jeff could bring to the group, but he knew what the reactions of ones like the General and Mary, and possibly Roan would be to someone with Jeff's history being let in on their secrets. They went back to Jeff and were straight with him, they told him that they had to convince others before they could tell him anything, but they promised that they would do their best to bring him in. They asked who he'd shown this (waving at the table) to, and he told them that he'd only shown it to Lester back when he did it, but he'd laughed at him and called him an idiot. The one thing that they did ask of him, for his safety and theirs, was that whichever way the talks they were going to have came out, that he never told anyone about any of this, and when he promised that he would keep their secret no matter what, for some reason they were comfortable with his promise, even Casey. They asked if they could borrow these (waving at the table again) for a while, and Jeff just said "Sure." As they were gathering the paper up, Chuck realised that he'd left out something important, and he stopped and turned back to him to say "No matter how these talks go, the offer of working with Hunter Security and living here is your's, we expect to convince the others, but even if we don't you'll still have the job and a place to live." Jeff looked at him, and the others, in surprise, and when Sarah nodded at him with a smile, he beamed back and said "Thanks Chuck."

Chuck sent a request to the Council members for a video conference and about ten minutes before it was due to start, whoever wasn't already in the bunker headed down there. Chuck quickly scanned in the sheets that Jeff had put everything together on and sorted out the rest of his records, then went to make himself a coffee, he would have preferred a drink but that would have to wait until after. Before the video conference started he sent a message to his mother telling her to stop and consider any responses she sent in, if she started throwing around accusations and opinions without finding out the facts first, it could set their reconciliation back quite a bit, she didn't answer, but he didn't have time to work out whether that was good or bad.

Chuck started the meeting off with the events of the previous day, starting with the call from Jeff to warn him of the ones going after Ellie, the incident at the hospital, and the subsequent events at the Buy More and at their apartment. It was clear that most of them could see where it was going, and it would be interesting to see who argued first. After that Chuck went over Jeff's history, the drugs, his mother in prison and everything else, and explained Jeff's qualities and capabilities. He was actually a little amused when it was Roan who was the first to bite. "Charles, are you trying to tell us that this sot who was buried in the Buy More for ten years is actually a diamond in the rough who we can trust with all our secrets and depend on? That's absurd!" Chuck's voice was low and calm as he asked whether Roan thought that it was impossible for a worthwhile person with great potential to hide himself in the Buy More for years, rather than risk putting themselves out there? "Y… oh, sorry, I can see how you would find that position insulting, I do apologise, but even so, we have nothing to show us that we can trust a man like this with our secrets." "Actually, we do" With that he shared the scans of the diagrams and information that Jeff had put together with all the detail of Team Bartowski's spy activities (or what was visible in Burbank at least), when it'd had time to sink in that Jeff had accurately mapped out their entire operation here, Chuck pointed out that Jeff had achieved this back when he was a drug addled sot, as Roan so delicately put it, and he had only shared it with one person, who he had believed that he could trust, and who had dismissed it as the drug addled ravings of an idiot. Now that Jeff was protected from being slipped dangerous cocktails of illegal drugs (unbeknownst to him) by outside parties, they had every confidence that a similar that lapse of judgement would not occur again.

This was the point where the General waded in, saying that while that it was admirable for Chuck to look out for his ex-colleague, they couldn't afford risking exposure and the compromise of everything that they'd worked for, for a charity case of this nature. When Chuck cut her off and asked that he be allowed to finish presenting his case without further interruptions, she backed down and agreed, reluctantly. Next Chuck asked his father if he remembered that program that he'd asked Chuck to have a look at, because there were problems with it? His father nodded, so Chuck explained that he hadn't had a chance to look at it for more than five minutes at a time and hadn't gotten anywhere with it, but he gave it to Jeff and HE fixed the bugs AND optimised some functions that hadn't been coded properly in ten minutes, his father didn't believe it until Ellie piped up to say that Jeff did it in Chuck's lounge room in front of all of them.

At that point Chuck summarised to say that Jeff obviously had a number of skills that would greatly benefit the council, he had Chuck's personal trust and respect, and he wanted to bring Jeff into the Council, therefore he called for each person's vote on the matter. Sarah, Ellie and Casey threw in their "Yay"s immediately, with Carina and Zondra on their heels, Emma and Bryan agreed next, followed by Mary (to Chuck's surprise), and then his father. The General registered the first "Nay", and Roan went with her, and they were less than pleased when Chuck announced that with a vote of ten (including his own) to two, Jeff was accepted into the Council. The General still tried to argue that they didn't know enough about Mr Barnes to trust him with the secrets of the Council, which made Chuck get testy and respond " No, YOU don't know enough about Jeff to make a balanced decision, did you pay any attention to the fact that those who do have a deeper understanding of him were the first to give their support? Now, are you going to accept the vote of the Council, or not?" (This last was throwing her own words that she'd used when Chuck and Sarah argued against the vote that made them the leaders of the Council back at her.) She glared at him and said that she would accept the vote of the Council, and disconnected her link. Roan said "Sorry Charles, but I had to vote the way I saw to be correct.", accepting Chuck's nod before he disconnected.

Chuck looked around the table and said "Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" Sarah mock growled at him and said that he had a strange idea of fun, then moved in to kiss him. Chuck looked at Casey and asked if he could bring Jeff down, before he went over to get that drink he'd wanted before.

When Jeff walked in with Casey he was beaming, looking around at everything in awe, and his grin got even wider when Chuck greeted him with spread arms, saying "Welcome to the spy lair!" As they were showing Jeff around, Chuck asked him what he thought of the spy lair, and Jeff's reply floored all of them when he said "It's great, but I was actually talking about the other one under the Buy More." after about thirty seconds of silence, Casey actually laughed when he said "Yup, definitely a good call to bring him on-board, we'd be in trouble if he wasn't on our side." While they were down there, Chuck set Jeff up with all the accesses he'd need, and together they set up the workstations and gear that he'd need for his work in one of the rooms. While they were doing that, Chuck explained that yes, he was right about the other base, but that was a government one and they weren't likely to get him approved to get access to that, and they didn't want him on their radar anyway. If they'd showed the government what Jeff was capable of, someone in the hierarchy would almost certainly put up a case to either throw him in a black hole, never to be found, or drag him off to a government facility were he was working for them, but wouldn't have much more freedom than he would in prison. He stopped to look at Jeff at that point and said that they thought he'd prefer to work with them and be free than to be taken away by the government, wouldn't he? Jeff gulped and said "Uh, yeah.", so Chuck nodded and went on to say that he'd be working mainly remotely (and sometimes on customer sites) as a contractor for Hunter Security, and he'd also be working with them on the Council projects and missions. If they hadn't gotten agreement from the others, he would have still been working for Hunter Security, but they would have set up the gear he needed to do that upstairs. That was the original idea to start him off before he showed them that he already knew so much about what was going on.

At the new mention of the Council, Jeff pointed out that no-one had explained that to him yet. Chuck nodded and put his tools down and pulled up a chair, motioning for Jeff to do the same. He explained that for now this would be the cliff notes version, they'd go into more detail when there was time, before starting into the story. "My parents, Sarah's mother and a few other old hands in the spy world had been getting worried about how fast everything was going down the toilet in the spy world and government in general (they had an added incentive because they all had children, and three of us were involved in that world to some extent), so about six years ago they formed the Council to try and do something about it. About two years back, I was put in a position where I could make a big difference, so they recruited me into the Council, and almost destroyed what I had with Sarah until I came back and they helped me convince her that what I'd done was necessary. When Sarah accepted me back she joined the Council too and we went back to our normal government spy roles, but this time we were doing the Council's work behind the scenes." Jeff interrupted him at that point, saying that that was when he came back to the Buy More, and Chuck nodded before going on. "Things were pretty bad for a while because of the things we had to do to keep up appearances for the agencies we were working for, and to keep Casey in the dark about what we were doing, but just as everything came to a head a situation came up that let us bring Casey into the loop, and from there my sister Ellie, too. Around that time we managed to convince the powers that be to let us ditch the Buy More and set up a small cover company to work out of, and that's how Hunter Security was started, but it actually is a viable business, we have more work than we can handle. We had another rough patch after that, because things came up to make Ellie's husband show what a douche he was, and we found out that Sarah's best friend (Carina) was actually her half sister, so we brought her in and got rid of Ellie's husband when she finished things with him." Jeff looked him in shock at that, which made Chuck pull back. "No, no, we convinced him to not contest the divorce and go back to his family on the East coast, we know some people who have enough sway to convince him that trying to use his family's connections to make things difficult for us would have been a very bad idea."

He had to stop and remember where he was at that point. "Then Carina had the idea to bring another friend of her's and Sarah's (Zondra) in, but there were some unresolved issues that Sarah had to sort out with her, so Carina basically pushed us into getting engaged then to get her to the party to talk, which of course led to Sarah's Porsche being blown up, and almost Carina with it, but they sorted out the issue they were arguing about and got back together and she's on-board now, too." He drew a breath and went on. "We had some issues leading up to the wedding, and Sarah's father turned up out of the blue on the day of the wedding, but we didn't tell Sarah because, well, he's a crook and was just there to scam her, but as a result of that, Carina did an investigation and found out that they had over twenty more siblings, as well as unearthing some very bad things. When we came back from our honeymoon she and Sarah had it out with him, and now he's been put away in a government prison for what he's done, and to make sure he doesn't try and use what he knows against us or the government. The Council is working on some things for the President, and as part of that, Sarah and Carina have contacted some of their brothers and sisters in various agencies and got them to work with us to track down the problems. By the way, Sarah and I are having a baby and that's why Kate's here, she's not really Sarah's twin sister, she's one of her half sisters and she'll be working with me in the field when Sarah can't. We have some really cool gear to play with and access to just about any system in the world, but you'll see that as we go along, and that's about it."

Jeff just sat there, stunned, but Chuck had to laugh at the first thing he came out with "You and Sarah are having a baby? That's great!" Chuck nodded, saying that they were pretty happy about it, though Sarah was getting fed up with the things she was being stopped from doing. With that, though, he got serious, saying that they had to get these things set up, but also had to broach something else, and he wasn't sure how Jeff would take it. He pointed out that if Jeff was going to be fully part of the team, there could be times where he'd be needed to go along with the team on missions to use his computer skills on-site, and if he was going to do that he was going to have to get in shape. He was a bit surprised when Jeff wholeheartedly agreed with that, and was musing about how to set things up so Casey could work with him on that when Carina piped up from the doorway "I can do that." (She'd been walking past the door when Chuck brought up the fitness thing.) Chuck was rather surprised and looked between the two of them before asking "Are you sure?" Carina nodded, saying that Casey had too much on as one of the team's primaries and he'd probably push Jeff too hard anyway (Chuck nodded at that, Casey was always all or nothing), so she could step in for this job. Chuck looked from one to the other of them saying "If you're sure?" again, and when they both nodded, he said "Great, well I'll leave you two to sort out out the details, unless you need a hand to finish setting this up?" he asked waving to the equipment, Jeff smiled and shook his head and Chuck took off.

Later that night, Chuck found out that Sarah had sent the clip where Jeff said that he was thinking of the base under the Buy More (with both Chuck's and Casey's comments included without the gaps) to all of the other Council members, with the note "It looks like we made the right decision.", because his mother called him to laugh about it, saying that they may want to expect Cougar to be a bit testy in their meetings for a few days. She also surprised him by thanking him for sending that note to make her bite her tongue until she knew what was going on, so it was Coyote and Cougar who fell into his trap in the meeting. She admitted that she was angry when she got the note, but she understood his reasoning when the meeting played out the way it did.

It looked like Jeff and Carina were serious about his training, because the next morning Jeff fronted up for the run. Carina was going to stay back with him at whatever pace he could handle, and they'd do a much shorter loop to start, working him up to longer runs as he went. She was also ducking back to the apartments several times a day to take him through additional sessions. As soon as she had the time, Chuck got Ellie to give Jeff a full examination with all tests, partly to find out what state he was in and ensure that they wouldn't be putting him in danger, but also to get the testing done to determine his compatibility with the BI, because if he was compatible, that should help fast track him getting into shape. They weren't that surprised to see that his compatibility was fairly good (better than some of the others' actually), so they talked him through the pros and cons and when he agreed, had him load the BI-Lite. That led to a couple of shaky days, but after that his rate of development doubled, with less aches and pains following the sessions. One thing the initial neurological scans had shown was that he had considerable existing damage (almost certainly from the drug cocktails he was being fed for ten years and the stunts he was induced to pull), and they were glad to see that that damage was being repaired almost as quickly as it was with Chuck and Stephen. They had high hopes for Jeff 2.0.

Knowing that it wouldn't be too long before Kate had to start the infiltration missions with Chuck, they'd taken all her measurements and found that she was pretty much the same as Sarah, so they'd gotten her to try on the "special" outfits that they'd had made for Sarah (armour cloth and whatever protection they could include) and they fitted her, so that angle was covered. Chuck and Sarah also made sure that she agreed to the same requirements that Chuck put on Sarah and the other girls, when the shooting started, stay behind Chuck (or Casey), as he was wearing serious protection and could use it to protect the both of them. When the infiltration missions started, Kate took Sarah aside to see how she was doing, as she couldn't imagine that she was comfortable seeing Chuck making out with another woman, especially when she was made up to look just like her. Sarah told her that it was fine but she didn't think that that was the total truth, so they sat down to talk it out. Some of the things that Sarah told her had happened shocked her, but she could see that her sister was comfortable in her husband's commitment to her.

Kate was working hard to get closer to the team's standards, within a couple of weeks she could pretty much keep up with them on their "runs" and she was throwing herself into the exercises, martial arts and weapons trainings, all that had gotten a lot easier after she'd loaded the BI-Lite. She was also throwing herself into all the other fields that this team spent its time on, if nothing else she would be a few levels higher in ability by the time this gig finished, but the longer she was there, the more she found herself wishing she could just stay with the team, with her family.

Jeff was also coming along quickly, in not much over a month he'd trimmed down quite a bit and was lasting longer in the training sessions with Carina. He was still a long way from the level of anyone else on the team, but he was a hell of a long way from where he started. Looking at him at that stage, Carina decided that it was time to update his image and took him out for a whole new wardrobe, as well as taking him to a hairdresser acquaintance to get rid of his Krusty the Clown look (she didn't know why, but she didn't like him looking like he wasn't living up to his potential). Since he'd started making real progress on the fitness issue, she'd expanded the martial arts training beyond the Tai Chi and Shaolin training that were part of their core exercise regime, and started him on weapons training as well, even of he wasn't going to be up to the level of the field operatives on the team, she was going to make sure that he could look after himself if he was going to be coming along on any missions.

By the time Sarah was starting to show, the CIA had posted Adam to London (as they'd expected), so Chuck, Casey or Ellie were pulling almost an all-nighter about once every week or two to take Kate over there in one of the Falcons to see him. Kate tried to say that they didn't have to (even though seeing her husband did make everything better), but they reminded her that they'd promised her, and her being on her game because she wasn't missing him meant that it was safer for all of them. They were also considering loading the requisite piloting skills into her BI database and getting her up to speed on the Falcons, so that she could fly herself, but getting time to do that from scratch when she was trying to get up to speed on everything else, well it just wasn't doable yet.

Sarah's other brothers and sisters were still out there digging up what they could in their respective agencies or whatever, so they'd done what they could to try and improve their safety. They all had outfits or uniforms with Orion's "casual" protection (armour cloth and light armour) built into it (though they couldn't always wear them), they had the electronic devices to give them warning if they were being monitored and give them some protection, just having the Hunter secure phones gave them a level of safety as they were hybrid satellite/cell phones, which meant that they could call for help when others couldn't. On top of that all of them had the BI-Lite loaded now, which gave them an edge and meant that they'd heal better and faster than they would have otherwise. Their chances were better, but they were out there in hostile environments where they didn't know who they could trust, maybe it was the pregnancy, but Sarah was getting worried about them.

**A/N: I did have a rather dark section in here, but I decided that it was too much for most readers and took it out.**


	18. Eureka

**As usual, no rights to any characters portrayed not created here, and thanks to my 1%ers (almost 1.4% now ;^)**

The others loved Jeff's new look, but Chuck noticed Sarah giving Carina a strange look when they were ribbing him about. Curious, he thought, and tabled it to bring up later when they were alone. Of course, just after that they found something that they thought may tie things together in their investigations, and the Carina matter slipped down the list.

What they'd found was a possible connection between the current activity that they were trying to get a handle on, and what happened before they took the Ring down, one General Merriweather. They'd thought back then that he was just a blow hard trying to establish his importance and advance his career, and that he was purely being used by the Ring as a puppet on the Operations Oversight Committee when they were using the committee to come after all of them, but now they were seeing some very interesting transactions on his overseas accounts. It had taken them a while to manage to tap into the systems of the overseas banks (some of the tweaks that Jeff had done were probably the catalyst that moved them past the block they were getting), but now that they were in, they could see the money that was going to him, and how much he had stashed away over there, it looked like the General had been a paid man for some time. (While they were chasing the "big" intel, they had forgotten that "people" like that would always be available to get into bed with anyone who offered them enough, if they'd stopped to think about it they could have been watching him and the others like him, and they may have been a bit further along.)

Their investigations were moving forward more quickly now, which really highlighted the bottleneck that they'd been coming up against from the start, until Chuck came on-board with the Council, Stephen was their only real technical resource, but they weren't doing much so it wasn't causing that much of a problem. When Chuck, Sarah and the others came on board, the activities of the Council went through the roof, and suddenly they were struggling to find the time to cover the technical requirements of the on-line investigations as well as everything else, especially Chuck, Sarah would often find herself waking up alone in the middle of the night because Chuck had gone to the study to try and make some headway on the backlog. With the addition of another guy with comparable technical skills to the group, in Jeff, some of the load was taken off Chuck and Stephen, and they were getting some real mileage on the technical issues that they were trying to deal with, which in turn meant that they were getting mileage on their on-line investigations. The rest of the team were getting pretty solid in their technical skills, but they were nowhere near being able to help with the real technical issues, and they all knew that.

While Carina and the rest of the team were improving their technical skills, Kate and Jeff were making good progress on their fitness and physical skills, Kate was getting to the point where she could keep up properly with the rest of the team on their "runs", and it looked like in another month or two, Jeff may be getting close to keeping up, too. On the skills side, Kate was giving Carina and Zondra a good workout on the mat, she'd never match Chuck or Sarah (well, an un-pregnant Sarah), but if she kept going the way she was, she should be a match for just about anyone else. Jeff never expected to be a serious threat in a fight, but he was picking up some pretty good skills fairly fast, so it was quite possible that he'd be able to hold his own in a fight before too long if he had to, much to his surprise.

The fact that Jeff's addition helped the Council and Hunter Security workloads didn't help with the "official" reason that they were there for, though, because the addition of Kate to Team Bartowski brought the team up to five field agents and one (rather disgruntled) field analyst in Sarah. That meant that the powers that be expected more missions and more results from the team to justify maintaining a six person team there, and there was nothing the General could do to ward off those demands, the bean counters just looked at the numbers and so did her government superiors. That meant that they had to divert more time and energy to the government work to keep up appearances, which in turn pushed more of the load for the Council work onto the others in the group, but luckily Jeff WAS able to help with that part. Working with the General, they did manage to influence the nature of some of the government investigations and missions to work in with the Council's goals, as the organisations that the Council was going after were easy to put on the government watch lists due to their goals and activities, so some of the results of the government work could be filtered off for Council purposes, much as they'd been going since Chuck came on board (and before that as well, as the General had been setting some missions for the team on the basis of what the Council discovered for years).

One of the things that Chuck had to find time for was his father's Roc project, as he'd promised him that he'd work on it with him. Chuck had been out to the warehouse complex that they'd bought outside of Barstow to build and house the Roc regularly to provide input to the operation and get to know the team out there. He was surprised that his father had gone with that location, seeing as they didn't have too many good memories of Barstow (well, he and Sarah may have, but his father certainly didn't), but the site was almost perfect for what they wanted, it had been built as a regional depot for a shipping company on a back road that was scheduled for a major upgrade, but they hadn't found out that that the roadworks proposal was rejected permanently due to the high costs accruing from the amount of earthworks that would be required when the major industrial development that was supposed to happen at the other end of that road was cancelled and moved to another state. As a result, they had a brand new warehouse complex on a road that their semi-trailers had trouble handling at speed, so they scrapped the site and put it on the market, but it had been sitting there for sale for nearly a year without any interest at all, so when the Council made an offer of about 25% of the original asking price through a shell corporation, the owners took the offer to cut their losses. As a result, the Council now had one main warehouse big enough to take the Roc easily with room to spare, and a few smaller warehouses that met their other needs. The ex-military members of the Council used their connections to recruit a team of ex-soldiers (Marines, Rangers, Special Forces, and Navy Seals mainly) to provide the security and management of the site, and they also made up strike teams for the Council.

The only modifications to the buildings that were required were to rebuild the front wall of the Roc Haus (main warehouse) as a multi panel "door" with a 30M x 50M opening, and a similar operation to raise and widen the doors on the other warehouses to allow the Valkyrie to enter (as they were also building another two Valkyries to extend the fleet). They built a bunker complex that was big enough to house the strike teams (and more) and serve as an operations centre under the warehouses, using the same process as they'd used under the apartments to convert the excavated materials into the denser material used for the floors/walls/ceilings etc, and the bunker complex that was being built down there was incredible. Given that they had all the custom robotic excavation equipment and shoring gear, along with the equipment to create the "bunker" material for the walls etc there on site, and Stephen and his inventor friends had created and installed a clean reactor to fill all the power needs, they decided to give the guys based out there a free hand to add to it as they wished (elite military types had a tendency to get bored rather quickly, and that wasn't a good thing with men like that, as they'd seen with Casey), so they kept extending it, much of the bunker complex was multi-level with driveable passageways, stairwells and elevator shafts, and they built a water reservoir in one chamber that was a 25M cube, so they could use it for underwater operations training, in another chamber they built a 20 x 50 x 200M urban combat range with structures from one to five storeys high, (that one took them over a year to finish). The extensions did mean that they had to keep getting shipments of the panelling they used to shore up the ceilings and walls, and lay down as a base for the floors, but it kept them busy and they were doing amazing things down there. The pad outside the warehouses (already large for container storage and truck parking) was extended to ensure that there was enough room to manoeuvre the Roc, the Valkyrie and the Hercules (while they were building the Roc they acquired a C130j-30 with the KC-130j refueling gear added to handle their cargo and aircraft refueling needs, it fitted into the Roc's hangar easily) when they were entering or leaving their hangars, and to add a 950 x 50M runway for the Hercules (they only just fit it in), the surface they laid was a 1.5M thick slab of the bunker material, and it absorbed a lot of the excavated material. The outer end of the runway finished on top of a cliff over the valley, so the 5M high fences around the rest of the perimeter weren't needed there.

The shell corporations that the Council used for business dealings were also used to handle the Council's money matters, they had siphoned off over a billion dollars from the organisations that they took apart, but they'd also spent well over half a billion on all the things that they put together to enable them to do what they did, so they needed income to keep the Council afloat and working. Some of the intel that they acquired through their investigations made them aware of future market trends or situations, and this intel enabled them to make smart investments. As a result, some of their shell corporations were very successful and were being touted as the up and coming thing (which actually caused problems as they were trying to stay under the radar, so they had to get people to stand in as the officers of these corporations when people wanted to talk to them), but the main thing was that they had money coming in faster than they were spending it, usually.

With Jeff as an extra tech resource and the intel that they managed of extract from the offshore banks' systems, they were managing to make a lot of connections now, they were still drawing a blank on the subject of whether the Ring etc had been replaced by a new organisation, and it was taking them an inordinate amount of time to trace the payments made back through the multiple levels of shell and dummy accounts that had been used to hide the money trail, but they were building a image of who was being paid, at least, and they were starting to put together a reasonably solid picture of what they were being paid for. The process to identify the reason for payoffs was a painful one, as they had to go through the payee's schedule and identify what they'd done (or not done) around that time which may merit a payoff, which was a slow and boring job, but they were managing to identify events which fitted with the payments so it was worth it, almost.

Tracing the money trail wasn't quite as much a boring, manual process, but it was close, because whoever was behind the payments was being very careful and bouncing the money around through dummy accounts in different banks all over the place (they seemed to be almost as paranoid as Stephen and Chuck were when they were siphoning off the assets of organisations that they were taking down, or wanted to cripple enough to make them stand still long enough to hit them). As a result, they had to log every transfer as they bounced from one account to another like the ball in a pinball machine. What was even more frustrating was that most of the time when they finally managed to follow the money trail back to the original account, that account had been closed, and they'd have to try and hack their way into the bank's records and security camera recordings to try and identify who it was that closed the account. So far, there was only one occasion where they'd managed to identify the one who closed the account and it wasn't a patsy hired just to do that job. They were watching that one "real" player like a hawk now, because of how little return they'd got for the hundreds of hours of effort that they'd put into the chasing those money trails.

Whenever they found others, like Merriweather, who were on the take, they'd go in to bug everything they could, in the hope of getting something to identify who they were working with. This added to the volume of material that they had to go through, and was often quite disgusting as these "people" were mostly bottom feeders, and the things that they liked to do turned the stomachs of those who had to wade through the recordings (young girls (or boys), hookers, fetishes, orgies, porn, it was disgusting), so to console themselves they compiled detailed dossiers on each of them, so that they'd have plenty of evidence to hang them out to dry and get them put away when they took them down (if a more permanent option wasn't taken). There were a few who weren't disgusting sleazes, but they were mostly fanatics on a mission from god, or something, the very few exceptions who were being genuinely forced to do this were the only light in the tunnel, and they did what they could to fix the situation that had gotten them into the position where they could be forced to go along with the other side, mainly because it was the right thing to do, but they also got a lot of intel from those people when they helped them. Unfortunately many of the intermediaries were patsies engaged just for that function, like the ones involved in the money transfers (whoever was behind this was being very careful), but they still got to fill in a lot of blanks, which meant that they were slowly building the picture of what was going on.

And there were the missions, Chuck panicked when he heard a strangled cry in the middle of a fight on a Council mission, knowing who it was he called "K.. Cheetah, are you OK?" Sarah cut in "Relax Wolf, I think she was just shocked to find that she's OK, because she just got a full magazine from an assault rifle to the chest at point blank range." Kate's (altered) voice cut in at that "Yes Wolf, I'm OK, Tigress is right, I got caught out when I turned a corner and when he emptied the magazine into me in full auto at point blank range I thought I'd had it, I know you guys showed me what the suits would do, but that still doesn't prepare you for the first time you have to rely on that, I'm actually feeling kind of invincible at the moment." Sarah's immediate response brought her back to earth "Well don't, there are things the suits can't stop, and you have to stay aware of that, and your situation, I have to remind my.. boss of that all the time, don't I, Boss? Cheetah, I need you to stay safe, for yourself, and because you're watching a very important package for me, just remember that, OK?" "Yeah, sorry, I'm just still trying to get my head around being alive at the moment." "And believe me we're happy that you're OK, we just want to keep it that way." "Roger that." With that Kate continued on through the facility, paying a bit more attention to what was going on around her, she'd already dealt with the gunman as soon as she realised that she was OK.

The government missions were more dangerous than the Council missions (even with the edge that they'd managed to give themselves), so they had to be more careful on those, especially as they also had to be careful about what they said/showed in front of anyone from outside the team. Kate and the other girls had learned to appreciate the advantages of the Council's "casual" protection gear, Chuck's human shield doctrine and the care that the team had for each other as they were only getting a fraction of the injuries they had on previous missions of the same nature now, and the BI meant that when they did get injured, they recovered quicker and better than they ever had before. It did give the others a laugh, though, whenever one of them would go off in the middle of an operation about the piece of shit weapon or equipment they had to use. What they were using were the best that money could buy, the problem was that they'd gotten used to the standard of the Orion/Hunter gear, and they couldn't use that on government missions (except for tranqs and some electronics when it was just them).

Chuck and Sarah's way of getting through the infiltration missions with Kate was to keep a private line open all the time and quietly talk through much of it. Kate would sometimes look up and tell him to say "Hi" when she heard something that applied to her, but as Sarah had brought up in their original talk, she was happy that she could do this type of mission with someone who wasn't testing the boundaries and trying to get into her pants all the time, so hearing her brother-in-law having personal conversations with her sister while they were going through the motions didn't bother her, it actually made her feel better about the whole thing.

Sarah officially went onto maternity leave (reluctantly) after she'd passed the seven months mark, she still went into the office a few days a week at that stage, and did quite a bit of work from home, but Chuck and the others had banned her from physically going near any missions or operations for the past three months (though she was getting all the camera and comms feeds, and providing advice and warnings, as well as keeping a private channel open to Chuck at all times). She kept up the Isometric/Isotonic exercises, along with Yoga, Tai chi, lighter Shaolin training etc, but she'd stopped doing the group runs at four months (because at their level it was too strenuous) and sparring at three months (too dangerous), so all in all she was climbing the walls, she'd NEVER been this inactive before in her life, if she didn't love Chuck (and the thought of having their baby) so much she'd kill him for doing this to her.

**A/N: This is a short one, sorry, it just wasn't really working for me.**


	19. New Order

**This chapter talks about fake sex, some may not like it but it's there because it's part of the story line.**

**As usual, no rights to any characters not created here etc. Thanks Wilf.**

Chuck ducked out after work to fly up to Barstow in "his" Falcon to check on the project's progress and see the teams up there, Sarah was getting close, and he didn't want to be leaving her alone when she was nearly due, so he was trying to get extra visits in now. On the quick trip up, he thought about the vote that led to the strike teams' creation and the extra Valkyries being built, it was the only time that Sarah had voted against him in the Council. The General had tabled the proposal to recruit a company of elite military personnel to give the Council the tactical support it needed on missions, and to build an extra two Valkyries to carry them to operations sites. Mary immediately seconded the proposal and called for a vote, but Chuck wanted to discuss the proposal first as he wasn't happy with the idea of them having a private army. What the discussion came down to was that they'd come too close to losing their own people because they couldn't trust those who were allocated to support them (Diane had obviously expected his argument as she'd cued a video of Chuck, Sarah and Casey being shot in the back by members of their strike teams, along with the RPG being fired at Chuck, leading to his jumping out of a 5th floor window and sliding down the cable outside), so the proposal on the table was to ensure that they'd have the tactical support they needed to carry out their missions safely. It did go to the vote at that point and it went through ten to two, with only Ellie voting with him against the Council's private army. Sarah had tears in her eyes as she voted for the proposal, but she said that she'd almost lost him that day and she wasn't going to risk that ever again if she could help it.

By the time he finished thinking about that, he was at Barstow, coming in to land. He pulled up into his normal stall/stop and put the Falcon down right outside the hangar, tossing his helmet and gloves on the seat but leaving the rest of his flight/tac suit on. He caught up with the Roc project people first, and checked on the Valkyrie progress (they were almost done), then sat down with the "officers" who commanded the four Strike teams and Bryan. Their security force was made up of four strike teams, which were each made up of six fire teams of four field troops, plus two senior (IE experienced, battle trained) officers who would provide tactical support (IE oversight and direction), either on-site, or from a command centre of some sort nearby where they could monitor the camera and comms feeds of all the soldiers in the strike team and provide direction and support, the officers would also serve in the field troops capacity as required.

Ellie had tested every one of the Council security force when they came on board, and once they'd all been signed off by the Council members observing them, they'd all been given the option and loaded the BI-Lite. As with the rest of the people associated with the Council who'd loaded it, they were all showing marked improvement in their fitness, physical state and capabilities, and once they'd adjusted to it, they'd gone to a new level in their capabilities (especially the older ones with more wear and tear), it wasn't too much of a stretch to say that most of them were potentially twice as good as they used to be once they'd received the extra training and the BI, and the gear and weapons gave them an even better edge, so the force that the Council had would logically be able to engage and defeat a numerically far superior force with little difficulty.

Due to the inter-service rivalries, the Rangers/Special Forces and Marines/Seals were grouped into the same strike teams, as they were expected to work better that way. The idea was that, when the extra Valkyries were operational, they could put three strike teams on the ground anywhere in the world within three hours, and if needed, the fourth team could be landed within a day anywhere using the Hercules (or one of the Valkyries could return to pick up the extra strike team). At Barstow, they had four of the Hunter minvans customised as Command/Support Vehicles that had extra weapons and the equipment to use it as a mobile command centre, and could still carry six, one of the CSVs (or minivans) plus four of the Hunter bikes could be carried in the Valkyrie's cargo area, and the Valkyrie could touch down, let off the strike team and CSV (plus the four bikes if required and whatever field operatives were involved in the operation) and take off again within a minute. That was part of what these meetings were about, the teams had been training on these deployments, plus actual operations, with Bryan and Mary and the meetings were to determine how well the training was going, and also how well they were settling into the "Council way" and gear. Most of these meetings went the same way, there were minor glitches at times in the training but everyone was developing to expectations or better.

Once he'd gone through all the meeting requirements, Chuck stopped to chat with Bryan for a few minutes (largely about Sarah and how she was handling the pregnancy), and then headed back to LA, putting the Falcon away and changing back into street clothes before heading home (and stopping on the way to pick up some things that Sarah wanted). When he got home he gave Sarah her treats and curled up with her for a while before going to work out and try to get some work out of the way before bedtime. Better to burn out than fade away, yeah that should be their slogan.

As Chuck had done his weekly duty towards the Council's army (he still wasn't comfortable with the idea, but he understood the others' concerns, and he would work with it) he went back to his "normal" schedule, the client jobs for Hunter Security, dailies for Team Bartowski, and they had just been advised that they had a two day mission starting that day to prepare for, at least the General had called Sarah to warn her of the requirements for this mission directly so she was prepared when he talked to her about it. (It had taken the General a month to totally get over her fit of pique about Jeff and the way that Chuck rammed his inclusion down her throat, especially after Sarah had stirred the pot with that video clip, but she did. How much of her pique was because Chuck had been proven correct about Jeff's value to the Council they wouldn't know, because she wasn't likely to admit it. She wasn't a bad person, she was wonderfully caring and supportive a lot of the time, but she had a temper and considerable pride, so she just didn't back down once she'd gotten her teeth into something.)

When they were given the mission parameters, they couldn't believe it, they didn't know yet where exactly the impetus for this mission came from, all they knew so far was that it was from the CIA, but they WOULD find out. Wherever it came from, they were insisting that it HAD to start immediately and supposedly had proof that the couple that went in under the cover as newly-weds on their honeymoon would be under surveillance the entire time, and therefore they would have to be 100% convincing with all acts that they performed. They further insisted that Chuck had to be there to flash on the parties that they were expected to come in contact with over the course of the two days. The entire setup smelled, it was obvious that someone had an agenda to force Chuck to screw another woman on camera to mess with Sarah's head, and their marriage, and probably their team, but they couldn't work out what value anyone would get from that. Therefore, as well as Chuck, Kate, Casey and Carina (CnC were providing support for the mission) being tied up in the mission for two days and unable to work on anything else, the others had to get to the bottom of this and work out WHY someone was trying to get to them like this before something catastrophic happened. On top of that Sarah was so upset she wasn't much help, she was eight months pregnant, her husband was being ordered to screw her sister (or friend, if Kate or Carina didn't do it, it would be Zondra), and she just wanted to kill someone.

They were halfway through another mission briefing and Sarah had just hung up on him for the third time when Chuck walked out. The current CIA Director, Lewis Goodman, tried to tell him to sit down, but the look Chuck gave him just about made him shit himself, even over a video conference across the country. Chuck didn't say a word, he just turned to look at the "man", before turning back to continue on out of Castle. Taking Carina's convertible he just about set a record time to get home, and walked in to Sarah curled up on the couch, crying her eyes out with Emma holding her. Emma went to give them some privacy but Chuck stopped her, as he wanted her to hear this as well as Sarah. He knelt in front of Sarah and made her look at him as he assured her that he would NOT have sex with Kate or anyone else, they would find a way to fake it, even if they were being recorded at all times (he did concede that it was almost certain that they would be recorded, as the whole point of this was obviously to get a recording that could be used to drive them apart, but repeated that sex would NOT be happening, and told her that they would get as much proof as they could to confirm that for her). Sarah looked at him and asked how they were going to fake sex under camera, and he admitted that he wasn't sure exactly how they'd do it yet, but was adamant that they would fake it.

About that point, Kate arrived, because she was almost as committed as Chuck was to address Sarah's fears. The first thing she asked Sarah was whether she would feel more comfortable if Carina or Zondra went through this with Chuck, but as neither of them were there to be offended (not that she was likely to care at that point), Sarah's response was "Fuck no! Why do you think I asked you to be Chuck's partner, because I don't trust them not to grab a chance like this to "take one for the team". If anyone's going to fake this with Chuck, I need it to be you." Then she looked like she was about to break down again as she said "But how can you fake sex if you're being recorded?" Kate looked at Chuck questioningly and he nodded for her to give it a shot.

"OK, for a start we'll basically need to be naked, I don't really see any way to get around that, I could possibly have something over my breasts, but that would be the limit, and even that may be pushing it. Of course you know that Chuck will have to have his hands all over me, but the good news is that the type of pigs who'll be watching this are pretty predictable, so we should be able to get away with him just grabbing my ass and back roughly to pull me to him, they won't be expecting to see anything like sensual caresses of the breasts or other sensitive spots, so we won't have to go anywhere near that. The same goes for oral sex, those types wouldn't expect to see a man doing that for a woman, so we won't have to worry about faking it, and as far as the other way goes, Chuck can tell me or pull me and push me to show me he just wants a fuck, that would be believable." (At this point, Chuck was thinking that talking about it like this must be making things worse, but looking at Sarah's face, he could see that the matter of fact way that Kate was explaining the options and requirements was working, she was talking it in and accepting it logically.) "Now for the actual faking the sex, we will have to go pretty close to make it believable, you know that, so it will almost certainly have to include Chuck rubbing between my legs with his penis, and there will probably be a degree of arousal and secretions and we'll have to either fake or actually have a climax for it to be convincing, but there will be NO actual sex, Chuck wouldn't do that to you and I won't do it to Adam. This situation is shit, and I really want to kill the guy who created it, but I can assure you that I will not have sex with your husband, we will put on a show to convince those bastards that we did because we have to, but we will not actually do it. If you want, Ellie or another doctor can do whatever tests you like when we get back to prove that I haven't had sex in the time that we're in there."

When she finished, Sarah looked at her for about twenty seconds, and then suddenly lunged at her and pulled her into a bone crushing hug that would have rivalled Ellie's, whispering "Thank you." in her ear. Kate kissed her on the cheek and when Sarah relaxed her death grip, stepped back so that Chuck could take his wife into his arms. Sarah had tears in her eyes as she asked "Why are they doing this to us?" He whispered that he didn't know, but he would find out, and when he did whoever it was would pay for it.

While Chuck was consoling Sarah, Emma moved around behind them to pull Kate into a hug, a rather gentler one than Sarah had though, neither of them spoke, just held each other with tears in their eyes, this situation that was being forced on them was awful.

When Sarah had settled down a little, Chuck kissed her gently and told her that they had to get back, she nodded and said that she'd be OK, so he kissed her again and asked if she could help the others try and find out where this was all coming from? His father and Jeff had the skills needed to get into the records, but neither of them had her instincts or grasp of the business, so they had a far better chance of tracking down the bastard responsible for this if she helped them. She nodded, her expression hardening, as this was something that she could do, and when they found who was behind this they were going to make him pay! Seeing that his avenging angel was back, Chuck felt a little bit better (not much as this whole thing made him furious), so he kissed her, told her he loved her and got ready to head back to Castle. Before he left he hugged Emma, kissed her on the cheek and ask if she could stay with Sarah? His mother-in-law returned the kiss and told him that they'd both be there when he got back, which got a grateful smile and another hug before he left.

When they got back to Castle, Goodman and the General were both still on the video conference, and Goodman must have drawn a sense of security from being on the other side of the country while he was away (not realising that Chuck had the means to be there in an hour to rip his spleen out through his throat), as he demanded an explanation for them leaving the briefing without authorisation. Chuck just looked at him again (quickly making him reconsider his bravado), and informed him that he and his partner (the fact that Sarah, Carina and Kate were sisters was not known to the agencies that they worked for) had to explain to his pregnant wife why he had to perform a mission of this nature. Goodman started accusing Chuck of leaking classified mission details to personnel without any formal connection to the operation (as Sarah was on maternity leave), but the General cut in to advise him that she had advised Agent Carmichael's wife of the mission details as she was still part of her team and while off official duties, she was still consulted on operational practices as she was one of the best agents alive, and her insights were invaluable. That shut him up quite effectively.

Now that Chuck and Kate were back, the team quickly put the last of the details together, both of them had collected what they needed from their apartments (another thing touted as the reason to go home), so they were ready to head to Cabo where their "mission" was. Within an an hour they were on the CIA G5, and an hour and a half after that they rolled up in the supplied limo and breezed into the hotel, being personally escorted to their suite by the assistant manager. Once the bell boy had delivered their luggage and left with a hefty tip, Kate went out on the balcony to look out over the ocean and stood there (with the sun shining through her light dress making it quite obvious that she wasn't wearing any underwear) to distract the attention of their watchers while Chuck walked around the suite ranting at someone on his phone, but in fact he was using the bug detector function of the Hunter phone to locate and identify the bugs in the room, sure enough there was video and audio everywhere that there was a chance to catch them in a compromising position, and it wasn't much of a surprise to find that all the bugs in there were CIA issue. The real beauty of the bug detector equipment that they had was that it identified the signals coming out of each of the bugs, which allowed their people to tap into those feeds, and start tracing them, the downside was that they were then watching what was on those feeds.

Once Chuck had completed his task, he stopped and looked at her for about thirty seconds and then headed out to join her there, grabbing her and pulling her to him when he did so. As Kate's arms went around his neck he started kissing her roughly (they'd generally put on an act to indicate that they were into each other when they were on infiltration missions, so this was expected) and he put his hand up her dress, from the moans she started making pretty quickly, the watchers were convinced that he was working her up down there, and as the moans got more frantic he grabbed her ass and pulled her up so she wrapped her legs around him and started grinding on him as they continued kissing. The watchers thought that they were going to get the footage they wanted quickly (not that they were going to cut it short, they were going to make this "mission" run its course), they'd been sure that both of these agents must be frustrated (Bartowski's wife was eight months pregnant, so he wouldn't have had sex for months, and it was four months since they'd sent Morgan's husband to England, so she should be primed as well), but they didn't expect results this quick. What the watchers didn't know was that both of them were communicating subvocally to their team via their implanted mics and sub-dermal speakers throughout this, when Chuck's hand was up her dress Kate was saying "Sarah, he's only kneading the inside of my thigh with that hand". As things were escalating, Chuck was saying "I'm going to kill the bastards who are behind this when we find them." and Kate's reply was "At the very least we have to be able to take a few pieces off of Goodman, he has to be in on this." "Yeah, and I know what small piece that I'll start off with." Then, as things started to get heated, Chuck said "Ok, now." and his phone rang.

The call was from Carina, officially making contact to check in (because they couldn't use their normal comms while the "other side" was watching them). As the call was being monitored and she was known to be Sarah's friend, she started demanding to know why he was out of breath, and he got defensive, saying "I was working out sis, look, we got down here fine but we need to get ready if we're going to make it for our dinner booking, so I've gotta go, bye sis." and hung up. She and Casey had swept the van thoroughly so she felt safe to talk and she turned to Casey, commenting that Chuck had gotten to be a lot better actor than he used to be, Casey's response was "Yeah, but this is hard on them, all of them, I'm going to kill someone for putting them through this." Carina's response to that was a grim nod. Back in the hotel room, Kate looked guilty and said that she should get ready for dinner, and grabbed some clothes before running into the bathroom and shutting the door. When she was in the shower, she kept her back to where she expected the cameras to be (they hadn't swept in there yet), but made a point of cleaning herself downstairs thoroughly. When she came out, she was looking gorgeous in black lace lingerie, as the tiny cocktail dress she was going to wear was so short that she couldn't wear it without underwear. Chuck grabbed his gear and headed into the bathroom, coming back in his boxers soon enough to find Kate ready to go, so he quickly dressed and they headed down to the restaurant.

They spent a few hours downstairs between dinner and dancing, finishing with a stroll along the beach before they went back to the room (as that's what newly-weds would do). They'd eked out the evening as much as they could, but knew eventually they had to go back to their room and put on the expected show. When Kate came out of the bathroom in a barely there translucent white two piece negligee set, Chuck groaned, because she looked just like Sarah, he had his subvocal mic turned on (they both did), so he said "Remember, this is just for show, no matter what it looks like, you know we're not actually doing this, I love you.". As she crossed the room, Kate was saying the same thing for Adam, because she'd told him what they were being made to do and he would get copies of all this, they weren't the target of this but he had to find out what was happening from her, especially as there was a chance that they may try to use this against him, too. When Kate slipped into the sheets, at first they didn't do anything beyond her snuggling up to him, but then Chuck put his arms around her and pulled her to him, they took it a lot slower than they had out on the balcony, but the (apparent) passion ramped up to the point where he ripped her g-string off and rolled over to pin her down, grinding on her as he kissed her roughly, stopping briefly a few minutes later to roll back, pull off his boxers and throw them on the floor before he returned, and then they started the act that Kate had described to Sarah. They had the sheet over them, but anyone watching would have been certain that they were observing an actual sexual act through to the climax, unless they'd heard and believed what Chuck and Kate had said. Afterwards, Chuck whispered an apology to Kate for being so rough in her ear (picked up by his mic, of course), but she said that it was ok. After that, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly to keep her face buried in the crook of his neck as she cried quietly, whispering that she hated these bastards, Chuck kissed her on the head and whispered into her hair "I know, we'll find them and make them pay for this." In the van, Carina was crying openly, and Casey was trying manfully to hold back the tears at what they'd just had to witness and listen to. When she'd had time to settle down, Kate slipped out and went to have a shower, putting on the same act as she had before and getting changed into another negligee before coming back to slip into bed beside the (apparently) sleeping Chuck, he squeezed her hand when she got back into bed and she snuggled up to him.

The next day, they spent the entire day out, wandering the markets or at the beach, and when they got an angry call from Goodman asking them why they were going off script, Chuck pointed out that they were doing what honeymooners on Cabo would normally do, so doing anything else would look suspicious, which made him back down. They didn't have the day entirely away from work, though, as Chuck flashed on a group of men who were human trafficers known to supply the sex slave market, when they called it in, they were told to ignore them as they weren't the people they were there to find. When they tried to argue, they were told to get back on mission and do their job before he hung up. All Chuck had to say into the subvocal mic was "Casey" to get the reply "We're on it!", whatever agenda the CIA had, those animals weren't going to be preying on innocent girls much longer. They didn't hear from Casey or Carina for the next few hours, and it would have turned Chuck's stomach to see how much blood they had on them after they'd extracted everything from the trafficers, but the ones they grabbed weren't a threat to anyone any more, and they'd gotten all the details about their organisation and connections out of them to follow up before they were finished, as well as managing to relieve some of the rage that was building up in them from this mission at the same time. The only relief that Chuck and Kate had was being able to talk to Sarah and Adam freely while they were outside without being monitored.

That night, they followed the same route of dragging out the dinner and dancing before they went back to their room, Kate came out in a similar negligee set as she had the night before, but in black lace this time. When she reached the bed, Chuck reached for her, but she giggled and stopped him, saying that she couldn't afford to keep buying new negligees because he ripped them off, so she slipped off her g-string artfully (without showing much to the cameras) before slipping into bed. They'd talked about this during the day and reluctantly agreed that they would have to mix it up and put on more of a show this time, so after a kissing and grabbing at each other for a while, Kate pushed back the sheets and climbed on top of Chuck, slowly pulling the tie to release the bow that held the top of her negligee together between her breasts so that they swung free (but never quite becoming uncovered, thanks to the subtle and strategic application of some fashion tape). The hem of the negligee draped over the tops of her thighs, and over Chuck's thighs behind her, though it didn't appear to cover much, as the lace showed most of her body underneath. Chuck held her around the waist as she rocked back and forth slowly, grinding on him for a while before the pace picked up and she collapsed on him after they'd apparently climaxed, and once again she wrapped her arms around his neck and hid her face in his neck as she cried, they hadn't done anything other than what they told Sarah to fake it, but she still hated having to do it, they both did. As with the previous night, she slipped out of bed (picking up her g-string as she did so this time) and went to have a shower afterwards, coming back to slip into bed with Chuck (who had his boxers back on) for a hug before they went to sleep.

The next morning they packed up and headed for the airport to meet Casey and Carina at the G5, and Carina was confrontational and had to keep up the act of being angry all the way home because they'd obviously cheated on her pregnant friend. They went back for Castle for a debriefing, where Goodman blamed them for the failure of the mission because they went off mission to go "sight seeing" (he had no idea that they knew that there was no mission, it was just staged to get footage of them having sex), after half an hour of that (it's hard to drag out a mission debriefing where there are no results to go over), it wound up and they went home. Ellie was with Sarah when they got home, and Kate grabbed her to come and do a full examination of her. Sarah told her it wasn't necessary, but Kate turned back to her to say that it was, this way she could have no doubts whether they had had sex, no matter what she was told or shown by anyone, even if the footage was doctored. Sarah nodded, with tears in her eyes, and Ellie went with Kate to give her a rather close and uncomfortable examination of all of her orifices, coming back half an hour later to confirm that Kate had definitely not had any sexual activity in any form while she was in Cabo. Sarah went to Kate with tears in her eyes to hug her and thank her and Kate gave her a small smile, saying that that was what sisters do for each other, and pointed out that she also had the proof for Adam if they tried to use any of this on him.

When things had had time to settle down a little (it would take them quite some time to actually get over this), Chuck turned to the others and said "Tell me we have an idea of who's behind this!". He wasn't happy with the expressions on their faces when they told him that they only had one name so far, Clyde Decker, and the Director of course. Chuck flashed on Decker, but like Goodman, while he had an unsavoury past and some questionable dealings, there wasn't anything solid to link him to any known organisations or operations that they knew to be associated with the other side. Anyway, he had a name so he started his own investigations into Decker, Jeff and Zondra tried to say that they'd already run searches on Decker, but wisely dropped it when they saw the expression on Chuck's face, someone was going to be in a world of hurt over this (rightly so), but they decided to get the hell out of his was to try and ensure that that hurt didn't come their way, because at the moment he looked like he was ready to explode on anyone who came close enough to get a reaction. Chuck was trying to get his rage under control, which was why he kept disconnecting the calls coming from the CIA's Director, as he wasn't sure that he could deal with him without exploding. When he couldn't get any response from Chuck, Sarah, Kate, Casey or Carina, he finally got through to Zondra to demand that she tell him where the rest of her team was, she was staring Chuck and Sarah in the face and the others were in the room as she put her phone on speaker and told the him that she had no idea where they were, they must have gone somewhere. She said that she'd track them down and asked what he needed them for, so she could tell them what it was about, and when he said that it was just a series of follow up debriefings for Cabo that they needed to attend, she watched Chuck almost explode and Casey clamp down on his shoulder to ground him as she said "But I thought that the debriefings were finished because none of the targets were found down there sir?" The response was "That's above your pay grade, agent, just ensure that agents Bartowski, Morgan, Casey, Miller and Walker are in Castle for the debriefing at 0800 tomorrow." and disconnected the call.

They all looked at each other and then Chuck turned to Casey, grabbing his shoulder and saying "Come on." as he pulled him towards the door. Once out in the courtyard he pointed to Casey's apartment and said "Interrogation gear, get it." Casey went to do as he was told, knowing that interrogation meant "torture", and knowing the name, or perhaps two names, who would be getting a visit from them tonight. While he was waiting on Casey, Sarah came out to ask him "Please don't do this." He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her on the head, pointing out that these people were obviously not going to give up until they tore them apart, and saying that if they had a chance, they'd leave them alive. Sarah stepped back and looked him in the face, saying. "I thought you promised not to lie to me? You know that there's no way of letting them live once you start without them coming back at us." She searched his face for what she wanted to see, and when she couldn't find it she went on. "The man I love wouldn't do this, he wouldn't do something that would change him, which would take away the thing that sets him apart from everyone else, if you love me you won't do this." Chuck looked at her with tears in his eyes, and turned his head to look at Casey, who'd been standing in the doorway of his apartment throughout the entire exchange, Casey met his eye and said. "She's right, you can't do this without losing a part of yourself like we have, don't do it, you owe her that, we'll find another way to get the information." Chuck nodded as he cried, and pulling Sarah back into his arms he told her that he loved her and took her inside.

They spent the night together, wrapped in each other, the others gave them the space they needed and Chuck cut off all communications to their apartment except for their secure comms links from the Council, leaving that block in place when he left the next morning. In the morning, Chuck, Casey, Kate and Carina were in Castle at 0800 for the video conference, when Goodman saw that Sarah wasn't present he demanded to know where she was. Chuck pointed out that his wife was on maternity leave and that she had no part in the mission that the debriefing applied to, when Goodman told him that she was still employed by the CIA and when he called for her to attend, he expected her to be there, Chuck just told him that there was a simple solution to that, and tossed a document on the table. Already knowing what it was, Goodman asked, to be told that it was the resignation that she'd completed this morning. He tried to say that she couldn't resign like that, protocols required that she present her resignation to him with her justifications in person in his office, but when Chuck started to react and was restrained by Casey, the General changed the status of her connection to reveal her presence in the video conference and informed Goodman that protocols stated no such thing. Furious at being caught out, he tried to bluff his way through the situation, demanded to know what she was doing in his video conference without an invitation, but Diane Beckman had stared down far stronger opponents than this worm many times in her career, and she quietly pointed out that this was HER team, and half the people present weren't CIA, and also protocols required that any meeting called with HER team had to be cleared with and organised through her, she therefore demanded an explanation of why he had attempted to leave her out of the loop and rail road her team like this? He tried to hedge around the issue by saying that the mission was a CIA one and so was Agent Walker, so he didn't see any need to involve her in the follow up meetings to sort out the details, but she just came back with the fact that this mission, which was an utter failure due to poor intel and other factors was indeed a CIA one, which was something she was scheduled to discuss with the National Security Advisor about, IE why her team was pulled off other, higher priority, missions to waste their time on something which was so poorly planned that they had the first total failure that they'd experienced in years. She also conceded that Agent Walker was from the CIA when she was permanently assigned to the Intersect Project over five years ago, but as Agent Carmichael (they'd maintained Chuck purely as Agent Carmichael in the system since he'd been made an agent) had already stated, his wife was on maternity leave and was in no way associated with this mission, which called for an explanation as to why he was calling for her to be in attendance, especially as she had paperwork here (holding up a sheaf of documents) recommending that she be retired for medical reasons due to complications with her pregnancy, which she expected was covered in her resignation letter (waving at the screen, and therefore the table in Castle where said document was laying) Chuck nodded, saying "Yes General.". The General nodded and advised Chuck that under the authority granted to her by the President in the charter for the Intersect Project, also known as Team Bartowski, she accepted Agent Walker's resignation and thanked her for her twelve years of exemplary service, and wished them all the best with their upcoming family. Chuck thanked her and waited on the next attempt.

Goodman still had no idea what he was dealing with, as he tried to regain face by stating that the CIA had been having doubts about the validity of the Intersect Project and this just confirmed those doubts, so he would therefore be recalling his agents to active duty on real assignments, effective immediately. Kate looked worried at that, but Casey motioned her out of sight of the cameras to stand down as the General responded to him. She asked whether he had bothered to read the terms of the assignments to the Intersect Project? She continued without a break, knowing full well that he hadn't bothered, so she explained to him that, given the level of security assigned to the Intersect Project, the terms of the charter for the project were that, once assigned to the project, no personnel could be re-assigned except by the head of the Intersect Project (that being her), this applied to the CIA, DEA (nodding to Carina), NSA and any other agency that personnel were acquired from. She conceded that the position with the NSA was unique in that she was the head of the NSA as well as head of the Intersect Project, but they were two distinct hats, and she had no issues with disregarding demands to release NSA personnel than she did other agencies, as those who had demanded Colonel Casey's release for other functions on many occasions had found out. She leaned forward to look into the camera so that she was effectively looking at Goodman (as well as the team in Castle) as she said that the CIA representatives who were members of the Intersect Project would NOT be released from their roles with the project, and they would remain in their current assignments. While she was on point, she also advised him that no other bodies had any authority to issue any direct orders or requirements to any members of the Intersect Project, the protocols specified in the charter were that any and all REQUESTS be directed to the head of the Intersect Project, who would make a determination as to whether there was any merit in those requests, noting that, from this point, any requests from the CIA would be gone over with a fine toothed comb to try and ward off another disaster such as they'd just experienced. Looking back at the camera she further added that, in view of recent events, she forbid him from directly contacting any member of her team, any and all contact from this point would be via her, and if she found that he tried to go around that requirement (looking at the screen over her glasses) the matter would be taken up with the National Security Advisor.

With that she sat back and asked, "So what needs to be discussed further on this failed mission, I was under the impression from what details there were, that the people they were sent to identify were apparently not in the location of the mission (and I can see no reason why people of that nature would be in a location like that, she mused, looking at the documentation in front of her), so her team went there to play honeymooners and do the expected things for a young couple on their honeymoon in Cabo for two days and then returned, so what do we need to discuss, is there any MORE intel that has not been shared with us? Goodman tried to say that the mission failed because they had deviated from the instructions given to them (as he'd said the day before), but the General cut him off, reminding him that her team had been instructed to assume the cover on a honeymooning couple, and as Agent Carmichael had already explained, what they did while they were in Cabo was perfectly in keeping with that cover, to deviate from expected behaviour would have drawn attention to themselves and blown their cover, something that he would have understood if he'd ever been a field agent. With that, as she had her teeth into the issue now, she demanded to know where the intel came from that her agents' suite would be bugged, forcing them to play their roles to the hilt? Her agents had confirmed that there were bugs in place in their suite, but their support team found no evidence of bugs elsewhere in the hotel and the background checks on the hotel showed no indications that it was anything other than what it appeared to be, an upscale resort, so where did the intel come from, as it must have been from someone intimately involved in the operation. Goodman was back pedalling by this stage, and all he could come up with was that the information about the bugs was included in the anonymous tip that the people concerned would be there. The General was playing this to the hilt now "Anonymous tip? You had my people called off higher priority missions and sent on a wasted mission under extremely arduous conditions on the basis of an anonymous tip and you didn't share that fact with us?" she stopped to (apparently) calm herself and continued at a lower volume as she assured the Director that this NEW piece of information would be discussed with the National Security Advisor when she went over the mission with her, cutting her connection, which led to Casey immediately doing the same for Castle.

Thirty seconds later, the screen popped up again with the General and she said in a more normal tone of voice that that should rattle a few things out of the trees, Casey nodded as he watched the status of the bugs that had been planted in the Director's office and mobile the night before. She turned to look at Chuck and Kate and asked how they and Sarah were doing, Chuck handed off to Kate first as he wanted to see if the bugs were picking anything up, Goodman was making lots of calls but they couldn't see anything telling in who he was calling, not without looking into who they were, anyway. Kate shrugged to the General's question, she'd hated doing what she had to on that mission, even with Chuck trying as hard as she was to stay as far away from anything real as they could it had made her feel filthy, the showers weren't just for show, and even though Adam was aware of it and the fact that they didn't have any way around it under the circumstances, she was worried about what it might do to their marriage, to their relationship (Casey turned from the screen at that to tell her that he'd take her over to see Adam that night, and she smiled her thanks at him), and she was also worried that they may have just painted a target on his back, now that Goodman was informed that he couldn't touch anyone on the Intersect Project. The General apologised for that, saying that she hadn't considered Adam when she was on a roll with the Director, she assured her that she'd make some calls and get some people to keep an eye out for him straight away. Kate thanked her and went to call Adam. The General looked back at Chuck and asked again how he and Sarah were doing, Chuck sighed and said "Not the best, like Kate, what we had to do felt wrong, and it felt like I was cheating on Sarah, the examination that Kate insisted that Ellie do as soon as we got back hopefully helped ease Sarah's fears, but it was all so wrong, and we still don't know what the bastards' plan is. On top of that, I did something stupid when I got back, and that will take some time to make up for." The General looked at him with motherly concern and exasperation, saying "I know, what were you thinking, grabbing John to go and torture the information out of Goodman and this Decker character, you had to know that you'd have to kill them afterwards if they didn't die in the process? That's just not you Chuck." She stopped as she looked down at Decker's name, and looking back up at the screen, she said. "I've heard of Decker, he's been the CIA's dirty jobs guy for some time, just as Sarah would get the jobs that other people couldn't do, he gets the jobs that other people wouldn't do, his specialty is anything that is morally challenged, this is not a nice person to deal with, be careful how you handle him." Chuck nodded, saying that he'd just seen red when Goodman was calling for Sarah to be there so he could obviously show the "sex" videos under some pretence to upset her, and once the rage took hold it wouldn't let go, until Sarah and Casey forced him to let it go. He understood what she was saying about Decker, but wasn't about to back down when the man was coming after his family. She told him to go home to his wife and he nodded, thanking her and heading upstairs to grab his bag and head home. She turned to look at Casey, who had turned to watch Chuck trudge up the stairs, and said "Find the answers to this please, John, before it gets any worse." Casey nodded and turned back to the screens as she disconnected her link.

**A/N: OK, not nice I know, but the other side's need for compromising videos of Chuck is a major part of their plans against him.**


	20. Target

**No rights to any characters portrayed not created here, and thanks guys, you know who you are.**

The first thing that Casey got onto was to revoke all accesses for CIA personnel (outside of the team, of course) into Castle, the Hunter Security offices and their systems. They didn't trust anyone outside their group much anyway, but the evidence against the CIA was abundant and immediate. Once that was done he, along with the rest of the team, and the rest of the Council, concentrated on Lewis Goodman and Clyde Decker, pouring every effort into delving into every aspect of their past and present activities in hopes of finding the connections to whatever group that they were working with, as those two were the visible face of the enemy, the only solid leads they had to focus on.

That night Casey flew Kate over to London with all the recordings from Cabo and the report of the examination that Ellie did, and she was hoping all the way over that Adam loved and trusted her the way that Sarah did Chuck, she didn't know what she would do if he rejected her, she just hoped that all the evidence would be enough for him to accept the truth of what she told him. She was so relieved to find that he hadn't doubted her, but he looked at the evidence to make her happy, when she got back to the airstrip where Casey was waiting, he could see that things had gone well, so he smiled and flew her home. It was what happened the next night, though, that brought it home to them that what you don't know can hurt you, very much so.

Chuck never knew what exactly knew woke him, but when he saw the figure bending over Sarah in the bed beside him, he attacked with the only weapon in reach at that moment, his pillow. Once he'd distracted the intruder with the pillow he launched off the bed over Sarah with a kick to the chest to drive the intruder back, following that with a flurry of strikes. The intruder in their room was good, very good, they'd managed to pull a knife in the moment before Chuck followed up on the first kick, and that gave them enough of an edge to manage to hold Chuck at bay for almost a minute before Sarah managed to take them down with a tranq dart. Carina and Zondra burst into the room immediately after that, weapons in hand. For all the seriousness of the moment, Sarah couldn't help laughing at Chuck's reaction when he looked up from zip tieing the intruder's hands and feet to find Carina standing in front of him, stark naked, pistol in hand. It wasn't until Sarah threw her robe at Carina and told her to cover herself that she'd realised that she was, in fact, naked, her only thought up to that point had been to deal with the threat in their environment.

Casey and Kate came running up from the bunkers at that moment (as that was the quickest way to get there from the apartments on the other side), followed a bit after by Ellie, and finally Jeff (well, "finally" isn't really a fair term to use when it was still well under five minutes from the original altercation that set off the alarms). It was Ellie who noticed the syringe laying on the floor on Sarah's side of the bed, and when she'd drawn attention to it, the only way to stop Chuck panicking was to go over every inch of Sarah's skin carefully, twice, and then again to reassure him that there were absolutely NO puncture marks anywhere on her body. Chuck refused to let Ellie look at the multitude of profusely bleeding cuts all over his arms and chest until he was sure that nothing had happened to Sarah or the babies (she was carrying twins), so Kate performed the initial first aid on him while Casey carried the intruder down to the cells in the bunkers with Zondra's assistance.

Once it was confirmed that Sarah and the babies were fine (aside from understandable distress at being attacked and seeing Chuck bleeding from multiple slashes all over him), Ellie took over the medical care of her little brother. It took some time for her to check out Sarah and clean and stitch all the cuts that Chuck had had inflicted on him, and that gave Carina time to slip away with the knife the intruder had used (and the syringe) to test it. It hadn't occurred to either Chuck or Ellie (or Sarah for that matter as she was unnerved and off balance from that attack), but Carina's immediate worry was what may have been on the blade, so when she came back about 200 stitches into Chuck's patching up process to let them know that the knife was clean, she'd found no traces of any toxins or other drugs on the blade, they looked her in shock as they only then realised that there could well have been. Seeing their reaction to that good news, she decided not to point out to them that Chuck had almost come down on the syringe beside the bed when he went after the intruder, she'd let them work that out in their own time.

When Chuck had been sewn up and bandaged (joking that he looked like a mummy), the issue of finding out who and what were behind this attack came up, and Zondra and Kate handled security upstairs while Casey and Carina dealt with the interrogation. With the threat that they'd just faced, and Chuck standing there covered in bandages, no-one argued with the fact that torture would obviously need to be used to get the information out of the man. They worked on him all through the night, with the rest of the team looking on (Zondra and Kate joined them after they'd brought in the four best fire teams from the security force at Barstow to take over security for the apartments), but unfortunately, while they got every detail out of him about him and his past hits, they got very little about who'd hired him to inject Sarah with the contents of the syringe, or why, and every lead from what they did get was a dead end, once again the other side had been very careful to cover their tracks.

They'd run every test that they could think of on the contents of the syringe, but beyond the chemical make-up, they didn't really know what it was, or what it was meant to do. They were all shocked when Ellie suddenly said "Let's see, shall we?", and quickly picked up the syringe, walking into the interrogation room and emptying what was left in the syringe into the neck of the man strapped to the table. She dropped the syringe on the side table with the torture implements and walked back out hugging herself, but her face was grim and determined as she watched the man through the observation window. It was actually Chuck who got why she'd done it, as he whispered "You don't stop, you never stop." (the words she'd said to him when he'd had to try and convince her that Sarah had left with Shaw and there was no way of getting her back) and she nodded grimly without looking away from the window. It took about ten minutes for the man to start screaming (presumably it would have taken a lot longer for the pain to start if it wasn't injected directly into the carotid artery, giving the assassin time to get away), and the screams escalated for an hour before his heart and other systems, already compromised from the torture, gave out and he died. While Carina watched what the assassin was going through, she was rather glad that she hadn't mentioned about Chuck almost standing on the syringe, they didn't need the panic attacks at the moment. Ellie's face never changed throughout the ordeal, what she'd just done went against her Hippocratic oath and just about everything she believed in, but a more primal part of her told her that she only did to him what he'd been trying to do to her sister-in law, and her niece and nephew. Those justifications didn't stop her breaking down when the man finally died and fell silent, and as Chuck was still holding Sarah at that moment, it was Casey who pulled her into his arms to sob.

Upstairs afterwards, when everyone had settled down enough, they talked about their options and what they needed to do. One thing that Chuck raised was the security of their non-combatants, if he hadn't woken when he did, Sarah and the babies would be dead now, they had sixteen of the best soldiers handling security outside, but they knew better than anyone that there was no way to lock down any building 100%. One option was for Ellie and Jeff to stay downstairs in the bunkers when they weren't with the others (he knew better than to suggest that to Sarah), it still wasn't 100% guaranteed, but it was a lot safer than them being upstairs, alone, when they slept. They both rejected that option as unacceptable, so he went onto option two, they would have to share a room with someone else in the team to keep them safe at night. His original thought was that Jeff would have to bunk with Casey, and Ellie could probably share with Kate, but the way that Ellie burrowed into Casey's side when he said that they'd need to share put paid to that idea, and he was wracking his brain, trying to find solution for Jeff's safety when Carina piped up and said that Jeff could stay with her. They all looked at her in shock (except Sarah, and Chuck had a flashback to that strange look she'd given Carina the day that she was being protective of him when they were ribbing him about his new look), but as that solution was obviously acceptable to Jeff, they went with it. The rest of the discussion was to plan what they needed to do to improve the security of the apartments as much as possible, and steps were taken to get those plans under way.

Over the next couple of weeks leading up to the birth of the twins, they settled into a routine at home, while Ellie moved in with Casey and Jeff moved in with Carina (they were still trying to get their heads around that), Kate moved into the spare room in Chuck and Sarah's apartment to assist with their security and free up Ellie's apartment for the Security team's use (they had an operations centre set up downstairs but they could give a more immediate response from upstairs). One thing that was hard to get used to was Jimmy, at 2.2M tall and solid muscle, Jimmy dwarfed Chuck and Casey. Even with his size and bulk, though, he was highly skilled and moved quickly, he was just a force of nature, but for all that he was a nice guy with a good sense of humour, he actually got and didn't mind Chuck's joking references to him as Andre (Andre the Giant), and they both laughed when they had to explain it to everyone else. No-one travelled or went anywhere alone now, they had at least one of the security team in and/or watching the Hunter offices at all times and even with that at least one member of the security team went through the Hunter offices and Castle to ensure that they were clear before any member of Team Bartowski entered. Much of the impetus for the extra security controls come from the others on the Council, they were concerned for the team (not just their children) due to the escalating attacks against them.

After the attack on Sarah, they weren't really sure whether the sex tape "mission" was meant to get to Chuck or her, it was obviously meant to drive a wedge between them, but they'd been thinking that the focus was all on Chuck, as the Intersect. IE: Separate him from the woman he loves to destabilise him, get him off balance and unable to use the Intersect (as they'd maintained that fiction). Killing Sarah and the babies would have had that effect as well, to be sure, but the nature of the toxins and the effects they had on the body made them wonder whether the attack was actually directed at her, as the drawn out pain and suffering that she would have gone through wouldn't have been necessary to send Chuck over the edge, their deaths alone would have done that, so they had to wonder whether the focus was her, instead of him. Or was it something else again?

When Sarah went into hospital to have the babies, there was at least one of them with her at all times, usually more, if there wasn't Chuck and/or others in the team sitting with her, there was at least one of the security team there as part of the medical team. By that stage there was absolutely no way that they were letting her out of their sight until she was home, safe, with the babies. Eventually, after over fifteen hours of labour (and a seriously crushed hand on Chuck's part), they had two beautiful, healthy babies, with Jaqueline almost an hour and a half older than Levi (old family names). They both had their families there, Chuck had his parents and Ellie, Sarah had her mother and seven of her brothers and sisters, plus Bryan, the one she wished was her father. They also had Casey, Zondra, Jeff and the rest of the Council and their friends there (they were all associated with the Council nowadays anyway), no-one important in their lives missed the arrival of their children (and Diane made sure that she got her chance to hold Chuck's children on the day that they were born, just as she had him). Once mother and babies had been checked out and declared fine, Ellie convinced the hospital administration that she was perfectly qualified to provide the care that her sister-in-law and her babies needed, and they took them home.

When she was back home and settling into the routines of being a new mother, Sarah was happy, she had Chuck, their two beautiful babies, and just about everyone she loved was around her (or at most a few hours away with the Council's fleet), but something was wrong, something was missing, she could feel it and the people who loved her could tell that something was bothering her. Chuck tried asking her what was wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it, and she got aggravated when she tried to talk about it, so he dropped the subject to stop upsetting her. In the end it was Carina who'd laid it out for her (with her thirteen year history of knowing Sarah Walker), she pointed out that Sarah had been a spy since she was seventeen, the best, and now she'd just resigned and given that all up to be a wife and mother, she'd thrown away everything she had been since their scumbag father was arrested to rope her into that world. When Carina put it like that (oh, so subtle she was), Sarah realised that she was right, the resignation from the CIA was necessary to sever any links that the CIA and Goodman could use against them, and she WANTED to be married to Chuck and be a mother to her two wonderful babies, but she couldn't handle that being ALL she was, she was a good spy, the best, and she wasn't ready to give that up, not totally, anyway. The problem was, she didn't know how to broach the subject with Chuck without him thinking that he and their children weren't enough for her, so she was still walking around looking worried. After a few days of watching that, Carina went into Chuck's office in Hunter Security and closed the door. Chuck looked up, a bit worried because of Carina's habit of keeping up her suggestive comments and Sarah's regular comments about not trusting Carina not to try things on, and nervously asked what she needed? "Do you want to know what Sarah's upset about?" "Yes, of course I do!" "You know how long she's been the best there was in the spy world, right?" "Pretty much since she was seventeen." She nodded at that and then asked "Do you want to make her give all of that up and just stay home and look after your rugrats?"

Chuck just stared at her as he realised what she was saying. He didn't want Sarah to be in danger, he never had, but he didn't want to make her give up everything that she thought defined her, either, he had no idea how they'd balance a family life and being part of the spy world, but they'd find a way. He shook his head and thanked Carina, telling her that he'd sit down and talk to Sarah about it, they'd find a way to make it work. Now that she'd done her good deed for the day, Carina decided that she was due a little fun as she'd known what had been going through Chuck's head when she closed the door. She slowly drew her finger down between her breasts, popping a couple of the buttons as she sashayed across the room towards him, and leaning in she softly said that now that the heart to heart was out of the way, how about that long overdue quickie he owed her? Chuck was panicking before he saw the laughter in her eyes and realised that he'd just been been played, so he hugged her with a laugh and told her to go before he told her sister about the last part. As she was leaving with a laugh, he called out to her and when she looked at him, said "Thanks" with that smile of his, she just smiled softly, saying "Anything for America's Sweethearts."

That night, when the twins were fed and had been put down to rest, Chuck was cuddled up with Sarah in bed, and the time seemed good so he started. "So I was talking to Carina today" He felt her stiffen as she realised WHAT he would have been talking to Carina about, and thought that he'd give a dose of her own medicine, "I thought we weren't keeping secrets from each other? Stressing about not wanting to give up what you've done your whole life and not telling me sounds like a secret to me, what do you think?" She turned in his arms to look up at him, he didn't look (or sound) upset, but she still wanted to tread carefully, so she just told him the truth. "I didn't want you to think that you and the kids aren't enough to make me happy, and I was having trouble working out how to tell you that I wasn't ready to completely give up my career as a spy without giving you that impression." He looked her in the eye and then he nodded, saying "OK, so how about we talk about parameters and limits and see if we can come up with something that we're both happy with?" She nodded hopefully. "No seduction missions." She nodded again, adding "For either of us, in Cabo you were with Kate and you were both trying to stay away from anything you shouldn't be doing and I still felt like I was dieing inside." He nodded, saying "Agreed." "No solo or overly dangerous missions or missions with agents from outside our team. We have kids now and we can't take risks like that." "For either of us, agreed." "If you get into a dangerous situation and the choice is your safety or the mission, you ditch the mission and leave." "Same, for both of us." "So, do you feel that you need to get reinstated with the government, or would the Council be enough?" She looked down for a while before looking him in the eye and saying that she wasn't really ready to give up on Agent Sarah Walker unless she had to, she'd been that agent since she was seventeen, and it was a very big part of her, with the situation with Goodman, resigning from the CIA was the right thing to do after Cabo, but she felt something missing now, when she thought that she'd never have that again. Chuck nodded, but asked if she HAD to be a CIA agent, as that was likely to be dangerous with Goodman and people there. She thought for a minute or so and then shook her head, she didn't need to be a CIA Agent, but she did feel that she needed to be an agent. He nodded and checked the time in DC, deciding that it wasn't too late, he sent a video conference request to the General, which was accepted and she came up on the screen.

After exchanging pleasantries and pulling the babies' bassinets into camera range so she could see them, they got to the subject of the call, Sarah looked hesitant so Chuck ran with it. "General, is there any chance of Agent Sarah Walker being reinstated as an NSA Agent purely on the Intersect Project?" The General was taken aback at first, but after thinking about it for a minute or so she said that she was sure that they could manage that, they could explain it away as the medical condition that led to her resignation under the circumstances had been resolved, but friction with the CIA Director and risk of punitive action against her made reinstatement with the CIA not viable. They thanked her for that, but listed the conditions that they wanted to be applied to the reinstatement. She wasn't unreceptive to that, but couldn't see how they could apply those conditions to one agent. Then Chuck came back with "What about the team?" She couldn't see what he was saying, so he pointed out the President had signed a charter for the Intersect project to give them a far greater degree of autonomy, if they wrote up an amended charter that included agents' rights to refuse (with cause) any aspect of a mission that they deemed unacceptable (eg seduction or overly dangerous missions), and they operated purely as an autonomous branch that couldn't be forced into larger missions with other agents (pretty much what she'd told Goodman), those conditions could be met for the team, she was slowly nodding as she saw how that would work, so he threw another tidbit in, a proposal that they all be disconnected from their current agency affiliations and reinstated nominally as NSA, above the normal "Fully Cleared" level but purely as part of the Intersect project under the authority of the head of the Intersect project ONLY, who is in turn answerable to the President, or possibly the National Security Advisor if they couldn't pull off the POTUS. He also pointed out that they could use the Cabo "Mission" (along with a dozen others he named, as well as the oversight committee that was being controlled by the Ring) as justification for the need for separation from the normal chains of command and running the Intersect team as a separate body.

The General didn't say anything for about five minutes as she considered the proposals and then smiled, saying that she thought that she could convince the President of the merit of the idea, and that it should work. She asked Chuck whether he'd already prepared the amended charter? She got a grin in response as he said "No, but I'll have it to you within the next couple of hours, along with the cases I mentioned to use as justification." She nodded, saying that she'd be waiting for it and disconnected. Chuck turned to kiss his wife, saying that it looked like Agent Sarah Walker would be back soon, only she'd be NSA on paper. She took her time to kiss him properly, then pushed him out of bed with a grin, saying that he had a charter and justification to write. He grinned, saying "Yes Ma'am." and she started to answer "Don't call me Ma'am!" heatedly, but glanced at their sleeping babies and whispered it instead. He kissed her again and headed off to the study. As he already had the draft of the last charter that the President had signed there, it took less than an hour to write the amendments and compile the cases that he proposed that they use as justification to pull them out of the normal chain of command, so that the usual suspects couldn't have any control over them. Once he'd sent off the documents he went back to the bedroom, to find his family asleep, he smiled and slipped into bed with his wife. When they told the others about the proposal the next morning, they were all happy with what was being proposed, but they were less impressed about the fact that Chuck had gone ahead with it without consulting them at all. He accepted that he shouldn't have done that and apologised, saying that he'd just gotten caught up in the moment and forged ahead with an amendment of what they were asking for Sarah. He did point out that there was little chance that the General had done anything as yet and said that they could contact her and get the whole thing cancelled, but they stopped him, saying that the idea was good, just no making decisions for all of them without consulting them from now on, and he agreed, and apologised again.

Of course, there wouldn't have been any chance for Chuck's proposals to go anywhere if they hadn't been working with the President since they met with him after Chuck and Sarah's wedding. The Council's investigations (and Sarah's siblings' efforts) had been providing a steady stream of evidence that was giving him what he needed to slowly clean out the bad apples in his administration, the intelligence community and the military, it was a slow process as it took considerable evidence to unseat entrenched members in those areas, but they were taking the time to build an airtight case before they moved on anyone. While no-one knew who was doing this as yet, people were getting worried and trying to infiltrate any groups that were attracting attention, which was why the previous charter for the Intersect project had been written and signed by the President, to stop the other side getting access to their team, or their systems, and possibly stumbling onto something they shouldn't, this current amendment was more of a strengthening of that position. The other side would never suspect that the Intersect team was the core of what was coming after them, they were looking for an organisation the size of Fulcrum or even the Ring (as they couldn't imagine a small group achieving all this alone), so they were trying to get into the Intersect team to get leads to that bigger organisation. On top of that, they were feeding the President intel on terrorist and other nefarious activities in the USA and abroad, and stopping those activities was giving him more than just a good feeling, it was putting him on a stronger footing at home and abroad than any US President had been in some time.

They still hadn't made any real mileage on the investigations into Goodman and Decker, they got a spike from Goodman after they dumped the assassin's body in his parking space at CIA headquarters (even his own people were talking when he referred to the assassin by name and demanded an immediate tox screen to find out what was in his system, as he'd obviously recognised the expression of frozen agony on the corpse's face). Goodman's recognition of the corpse and what what he died from erased any doubts about who'd sent the assassin to kill Sarah and their babies, so they had to restrain Chuck at that point, but Carina pointed out that they still didn't know who the order actually came from, Goodman could be just a gofer for the ones who called the shots. Chuck had to concede that that was probable, the tool that they'd dealt with wasn't any sort of mastermind, he was just a hack that someone put into the Director's office so that they could control the CIA. All they could hope at the moment was that at least one of the spray of calls he'd been making since they left the spy version of the horse's head in the bed for him would lead them to someone important, and they were still tracing all those calls. They knew that what they were up against had been in the shadows for a long time (it played the system too well not to have been part of the intelligence community for at least as long as the original Council members had), and they weren't dealing with idiots, whoever they were up against were obviously intelligent and very, very careful, they left very few openings that might give anything away.

As weeks became months since the attack, the security team was ramped back from four fire teams to two (the very best), and they settled into their role of on-site security for the team, further recruiting was done to fill their spaces in the strike teams, because it was agreed that they would not be going back. Chuck missed Jimmy when he went back to Barstow, as his sense of humour had alleviated some of the stress, but conceded that he was better placed in the strike team giving heavy weapons cover than he was in home security. When things settled down again, few were surprised that the new sleeping arrangements stayed as they were, they'd been waiting for Ellie and Casey to finally see what everyone else had for months, and while Carina and Jeff were a surprise (except for Sarah, just as the thirteen years that they'd known each other gave Carina insights into Sarah's head, it meant that Carina was an open book to her, too), it was working. In a strange but very real way, Jeff was Carina's Chuck, a nice, smart guy who was there to give her things she hadn't realised that she'd needed before he'd came along.


	21. Bad Pennies 1

**As usual, no rights to any characters not created here. Thanks Wilf.**

Sarah had started ramping up her training again within a few weeks of coming home with the twins (she had been incredibly frustrated about being kept from doing any serious training for almost six months, so as soon as she could she go back to it, she did), once she was back at it, it took less than a month for her sisters and Zondra to get tired of getting beaten up in sparring sessions with her, and they (well, Carina mainly but the others agreed) "suggested" that, as it was Chuck who caused the break in her training, he should be the one to help her get back up to speed. Kate thought that the gleam in Carina and Zondra's eyes when Sarah wholeheartedly agreed was just downright vindictive and mean, but she was taken aback when Carina responded with a soft smile, "No, just watch, it's a beautiful thing."

Sarah had Chuck down there and on the mats later that night, neither of them apparently bothered that the rest of the team made sure that they had ringside seats, as it were. They started out slowly, Sarah throwing test kicks and punches and Chuck deflecting them easily, but as Sarah increased the speed and power of her strikes, Chuck still remained on the defensive. As Sarah ramped up her attacks, the thing that amazed Kate was how rapidly and fluidly they could transition from one style to another, Sarah would launch a Muay Thai attack, Chuck would meet that with a Wing Chun bridging contact, transitioning into a Hapkido throw that Sarah would convert into a Capoeira move and come back with a Karate strike that he'd counter with another Kung Fu response, which would then transition into something else. The fluid moves and changes made for a dance that was, as Carina said, beautiful, and she'd never seen either of them this free or happy before, either. The fact that anyone without their level of mastery of so many differing forms of martial arts could have been easily killed in that dance of death (because the strikes were coming at full speed and full strength) wasn't lost on Kate either, she'd never seen her sister this close to her normal levels before, and because of that, she hadn't seen Chuck working at anywhere near this level either (only Sarah at her best was capable of really giving Chuck a good workout). It was even more interesting to watch them doing this with one eye on the double bassinet off to the side where their babies were, and to see the way they'd tenderly kiss and embrace whenever Sarah stopped trying to knock Chuck's head off.

As well as the frustration from the extended forced break in her training, Sarah had another reason to be pushing herself, the new charter for the Intersect team had been signed by the President when the General presented it to him, so she'd been reinstated as Special Agent Sarah Walker in the Intersect team under the umbrella of the NSA (she, Chuck and Casey were Special Agents while Carina, Zondra and Kate were Agents), for the next six to nine months at least (they'd make a decision together about what she was going to do after that) she would be restricted to remote support while she was looking after the babies, but her identity as an agent had been returned to her, and she no longer felt that something was missing. While she happily agreed to the operational restrictions (she loved being a mother to her babies), she was determined that she was going to get back to full operational fitness and capabilities as soon as possible, hence kicking off her accelerated training schedule.

Aside from being initially aggravated with Chuck about the lack of consultation with them before proceeding with the changes to their status (which they'd accepted once he'd explained that he'd really started out trying to negotiate something for Sarah and the change to include the rest of the team only came out of the General's doubts of whether they could introduce special conditions for one agent, and he'd been so tied up in brainstorming a viable solution that he'd forgotten to stop and think about the ramifications of the fact that he was now including all of them in his plan), the rest of the team were all quite happy with what the changes to the charter and their status meant for them, especially the women in the team. Up to that point, they'd been subjected to the petty and vindictive (if not sick and malicious) whims of their "superiors" in the intelligence community, and the structure meant that any refusal to comply with those whims (no matter how irrelevant) could potentially mean that they were subject to punitive action, or even sanction, from those "superiors". With the change in the Intersect Team's charter and the fact that they were no longer directly attached to any of the usual agencies, they weren't held to that any more, they were only answerable to the head of the Intersect Team and Chuck had ensured their right to refuse (with reason) any requirements that they considered unacceptable, he had even managed to add a clause (accepted as part of the charter) which gave them all the option of resigning and leaving, free and clear, at any time as a reward for their exceptional service to their country.

When the President signed off on the new charter and the terms of the charter were made known to others in the Intelligence community and government circles, the expected furore wasn't long in coming, and they closely monitored all the reactions, because some gave them pointers on where to launch their investigations, especially when loud arguments were suddenly silenced (as if they had been told to shut up by the people they were being controlled by). At that point they still had the four fire teams for local security, and they were on full alert, as they expected that if the other side were going to be goaded into attacking again, finding out from an official mandate from the President that they couldn't get access to the team via the previous protocols was likely to be the thing that did so. There didn't appear to be any immediate signs of action against them, and they thought that the other side was keeping its head down, until they got a call from the General to advise Sarah that Daniel Shaw was asking to see her, saying that he had some information that she'd be very interested in.

For the obvious reasons, Sarah wasn't at all interested in seeing Shaw, but the possibility that he may actually have important information made her agree to the visit, especially when Chuck hacked into the prison systems and found entries for both Clyde Decker and Kieran Ryker on his visitors list (both authorised by Lewis Goodman, of course). Sarah went white when she saw Ryker's name, and when Chuck asked her what was wrong she explained that Ryker was the corrupt handler that she was working under in Budapest, and who she'd spirited the baby that they'd named Molly away from. They looked at each other and Chuck brought up Shaw's records, looking for any evidence that the CIA had suppressed Shaw's Intersect when he was imprisoned, but as expected, there were no entries relating to that, which meant that he probably still had it, and therefore may have been able to tell Ryker where Emma and Molly were. Casey could read enough from their expressions to know that something was seriously wrong, and when he heard Molly's name he grabbed his phone and called Barstow to get a half strike team dispatched immediately to Emma's house. Bryan had the address and he would insist on staying with Emma until they were certain that there was no threat, and a half strike team would be more than capable of dealing with whatever force was sent there, if nothing else it would be a good rapid deployment test.

Casey waited until Chuck had settled Sarah down a little and then told them about the team on its way to her mother's with Bryan, which got a teary, thankful hug from Sarah. When she knew that her mother and Molly would be safe (as Bryan wouldn't let anything happen to them), Sarah looked at Chuck and said that she needed to go see what that bastard Shaw had to say. Of course he said that he wanted to go with her to make sure she was OK, and she smiled gratefully, saying that she wouldn't have it any other way. With that, as soon as they'd made arrangements for the girls to look after the babies they headed out to the nearest field that a Valkyrie could land on with Carina (who wasn't about to take no for an answer), as one had been dispatched there as soon as they'd decided to go. Obviously they didn't expect Shaw to talk if Chuck was in the room, so he would be in the next room with Carina monitoring them via the security feeds, ready to come in immediately if Sarah needed him. The Valkyrie was on the ground by the time they reached the field and the door was opening as they ran to it, dropping into the seats in the cockpit, they didn't bother with any check lists, just took off and blasted off to the prison where Shaw was. On the short flight over, while checking through the Prison records (he was getting Sarah to fly in an attempt to keep her occupied) Chuck stumbled onto other possible complications, Sarah's father and Morgan were also in the same prison as Shaw (they both smelled the other side's hand in that, courtesy of the CIA), so they'd have to talk to both of them to find out whether they had talked to Shaw at all and, if so, what EXACTLY they'd talked about.

They landed near the prison and drove up in the minivan, only delaying long enough for Sarah to get her game face on before they went in. Sarah had dressed to distract Shaw (and any other warm blooded male), and the only thing that stopped the leers as they moved through the prison was the look on Chuck's face, as fear of death trumped arousal in rational men. Sarah waited for Chuck to get set up with the security feeds before entering the room, and the prison personnel were shocked by the kiss they watched them sharing before she composed herself and went in, but none of them were brave enough to say anything, because the second she stepped into that room Chuck became something to be feared.

As soon as she entered, Shaw tried to get control of the situation, using the old chestnuts straight out of the CIA manual. He replaced his leer with an oily smile (which was supposed to be charming) as he said "Hello Sam, it's great to see you, though I am a bit disappointed that it's taken you this long to come see me." Sarah managed to suppress her shudder as she replied in a mildly friendly tone. "You asked to see me Daniel, what did you want to tell me?" She had to struggle to suppress the shudder this time as he leaned forward, his leer returning as he devoured her with his eyes and said "Do you really need to be that cool with me other after all we went though together Sam, after everything we did together?" She turned to walk away and he said (a touch of desperation in his voice) "I can't believe that you went back to him after he left you for that other woman, Hannah, was it?" She turned her head to look at him and he continued, more confident now as he thought that he had her "I hear you even married him and had his children, I never would have pegged you as the type to go that far to fulfil your orders Sam, but you must be, otherwise you would have had to have fallen for him, and that couldn't happen, could it?" At the anger in her eyes he thought he was on a roll, so he laughed as he kept on "Don't tell me you actually fell for THAT, did he tell you that he loved you, did your ticking biological clock make you actually swallow that line? Do you know what he was doing while you were home, waddling around playing Mary home maker?"

Sarah couldn't hide the her anger now, but Shaw was so arrogant that he thought that she was swallowing what he was telling her, and forged on, and he began putting a series of 8 x 10" pictures up against the glass as he said "He was doing HER, the whole time he was on that mission he was screwing her, while you were sitting at home, waiting for your husband to come home." After the first dozen or so pictures, the shock value wore off and they tended to be pretty much the same, and of course Shaw had no way of knowing that Sarah had already seen these events playing live, with live commentary from both Chuck and Kate throughout, if she hadn't, and didn't have 100% faith in her husband, the images he was shoving up against the glass probably would have been devastating, but as it was, they just angered her. Under the impression that it was working, Shaw kept on. "I hear she's his partner now, so how does it feel to be replaced with a new and better model of yourself? By the looks of it, they spent quite a bit to make her look like you so she could wean him off you. Do you smell her on him when he comes home, or doesn't he bother coming back to you any more?"

By now, Sarah's anger was growing, but Shaw still though that HE was playing HER, and kept going, leaning into the glass conspiratorially as he asked. "Are you going to stay there with your babies and wait for him to come home to you from the one that they created to take him away from you, or do you want to strike back at them, at him?" Sarah managed to push the anger down as she turned back to him, asking. "What do you mean?" He leered at her again as he said "You're still a beautiful woman Sam, you shouldn't let yourself be pushed aside, the people I work for can give you your life back, doing what you do so well, we can look after your babies and you can get back to being the agent that you're meant to be, and you can get back at him and the people who made him replace you." She looked confused as she asked "How can I do that?" He held a piece of paper up to the glass for long enough for her to memorise the phone number, and told her to call the number from a clean phone and they'd tell her what she had to do to get away with the babies. Sarah nodded and turned to leave, but what he said next stopped her. "What is it with you and babies? You were the best, but you almost threw everything away for that brat in Hungary, and now you've actually given in and had his babies, why are they so important that you'd be prepared to give up what you are for them? Well the one from Hungary won't be a problem much longer, Ryker is on his way to get her now, and when I get out of here I'll make you forget about them too, Sam." He hardly had time to finish that before she'd turned and attacked, the "unbreakable" barrier only held for a few hits and then she had his head in her hands, smashing it into the counter, it didn't take many impacts with the counter before it was a bloody pulp, and Daniel Shaw finally stopped being a problem. Chuck was in the room and had her in his arms within 15-20 seconds, picking her up and carrying her out of the room as she sobbed.

Now he understood why Carina had brought a bag with her when they left (and couldn't believe that he hadn't thought of it), she went to get the bag from the van while Chuck asked where he could take Sarah to settle her down and get her cleaned up (as she'd been liberally sprayed with Shaw's blood as she smashed his head in), not about to risk angering him any further after taking in the look on his face, the guards quickly directed him to a suite where he could look after his wife in private and a few minutes later Carina came back with the bag from the van. While he was looking after Sarah, Carina called in the number that Shaw had given Sarah and got the others to start investigating it. Chuck wanted to just take her home, but they had to find out what Jack and Morgan had said to Shaw that may have been passed on up the line, so he and Carina worked out the plan for getting the information out of them. Carina took her father first, to give Sarah more uninterrupted Chuck time, ordering Jack to be brought to an interview room. While she was waiting for him, Carina arranged for any guards or other personnel who'd witnessed what happened to Shaw to be taken away and held incommunicado by trusted NSA agents until they'd managed to clean up the whole mess, some of them thought that they were about to be disappeared, but the NSA agents assured them that they were just being held temporarily. They had to make sure that none of them could communicate with the outside world because they didn't know how many (if any) of them were working with the other side, so they couldn't risk anyone finding out about Shaw until they'd tried to trace the lead that he'd given them with the phone number.

When Jack was taken from his cell and chained to the table in the interview room, he didn't know what was going on, but when he heard "Hello Daddy" from behind him, his blood ran cold. Sure enough, the woman that walked around the table and sat across from him was that woman, his daughter Carina. Just as she had back in Burbank, she used a deceptively sweet voice as she spoke to him, but her eyes were as cold as ice. She put a voice recorder on the table and turned it on, starting out with small talk, before she put a picture of Shaw (the way he used to look) on the table and asked her father whether he had ever talked to this man? He looked at the picture, and thought about lieing about it, but the thought of what he was sure she'd do to him if she found out stopped him (he hadn't forgotten the sight of her taking that man down and then pounding his face into the wall while she was saying something to him) and put paid to that idea, so he said, yes, he had talked to him sometimes. Unfortunately that obviously interested her, and that in turn was something that frightened him. Over the course of the next half hour, Carina drew out, checked and re-checked everything he'd said to Daniel Shaw, getting angrier as they continued. Eventually, when he'd told her absolutely everything that he could remember ever saying to Daniel, Jack asked why she didn't just ask Daniel what they'd talked about, and she smiled, saying that that would be difficult as Daniel had had an accident, putting a picture of what he looked like now on the table in front of him. When Jack cried out in horror and tried to recoil from the image in front of him, he knocked his chair over and ended up hanging from the tethers that held him to the table. She stood up and came around the table, dragging him to his feet and righting the chair for him to sit down again, before returning to her own chair.

She smirked as he pushed the picture away in horror, her smirk widening when he managed to squeak out the question "Did you do that?". She continued to smile as she shook her head and replied "No, that was someone else who didn't like what he was saying to her." in a disappointed tone. At that point she wiped the smile off her face as she leant forward, saying "I thought we had a discussion about what would happen to you if you talked about us, Daddy?" He nodded warily "Then what do you think is going to happen about this?" (holding up the voice recorder and making it obvious that she was NOT happy about what she'd recorded on it) He started babbling as he pleaded for mercy, convinced that she was going to carry out her threat to kill him then and there, he said that he hadn't meant any harm, Daniel just seemed to be a nice guy who wanted to talk. He trailed off and looked at her in terror as she pulled out a phone (that she wasn't supposed to have in there) and called a number, saying that he'd compromised their cover and that it was time to go with Plan B, and he was still begging her to spare him as she stood up, picked up the pictures and voice recorder and walked out the door. Personally, Carina would have been quite happy to kill the bastard for everything he'd done to Sarah and her (and the others), but she knew that Sarah and Chuck would ultimately have a problem with that, so Plan B was actually to get him taken to a secret NSA black site where he WOULD be kept incommunicado under a different identity, like he was supposed to be here before the CIA changed the conditions to suit their plans. Just because she couldn't get the satisfaction of killing the bastard didn't mean that she couldn't have some fun with him, though, he'd be shitting himself when the NSA agents came in to drag him away.

When Carina came back, Chuck had gotten Sarah cleaned up and settled down, and she was resting in the new clothes that Carina had brought with her. Carina quietly passed on what she'd gotten from Jack, and told him that he was being taken away to the NSA black site to be locked away properly, before pointing out that it was his turn now. He nodded and stood up, bending to gently kiss Sarah before he left her with Carina while he interviewed Morgan. Carina stopped him and handed him the folder with the pictures and the voice recorder as he was about to leave, and while he grimaced at the "after" picture of Shaw, he took it with him, he may not go as far as Carina had with her father, but he'd push him as far as he needed to to find out exactly what he'd told Shaw.

When Morgan saw Chuck walk to the table and sit down in front of him, he was excited, convinced in his childish naivety that all was forgiven and Chcuk was there to take him home now. Chuck put the voice recorder on the table and turned it on, but eventually he had to cut through Morgan's ridiculous babbling about how he forgave him and they could put all this behind them when they went home by putting the "before" picture of Shaw on the table and asking in a businesslike voice whether he'd talked to him in here? Once again he had to cut off the rambling after "Daniel, yeah, sure, we're buddies, we hang out all the time..." with "Tell me exactly what you've told him, every word!" Morgan finally started to get the point that this wasn't about buddies making up, but he tried to say that he couldn't tell him what he and Daniel talked about, that was private. At that point he saw the face that had terrified all the guards outside, and he pissed himself as Chuck repeated in a cold, hard voice that brooked no disobedience, "Tell me exactly what you've told him, every word!" In small voice (so small that Chuck had to move the voice recorder closer to him to ensure that it picked up everything he said) Morgan spent the next few hours repeating everything he could remember ever saying to Daniel Shaw, and anyone else in there (because with his constant need for attention he'd told anyone who would listen his story).

Eventually he ran out of things to say and looked at Chuck fearfully, as he asked the same question Jack had, why didn't he just ask Daniel what they'd talked about? Chuck didn't take it as far as Carina had, but he did smile grimly as he said "That's not possible." and put the "after" picture in front of him. As with Jack, Morgan cried out in horror and recoiled from the picture, but he didn't manage to to knock his chair over like Jack had. Shakily pointing to the picture, he managed to get out "Who did that?" Chuck looked at him emotionlessly and then shrugged, saying "Someone who didn't like what he said to her." Morgan started asking more questions about who it was, was it Sarah? And Chuck cut him of again "Morgan Grimes, you were placed in this facility because of the risk you posed to National Security, unfortunately even being in here, with that strong an indicator of the danger of the things you may have talked about, you have proven (lifting the voice recorder as Carina had) that you cannot be trusted to remain quiet about the things you are privy to, therefore in order to protect the National Secrets that you continue to expose, you will be taken from here to another facility were you will remain in solitary confinement twenty four seven, totally incommunicado." with that he picked up the photos and voice recorder and left. When he got back the the suite where Sarah and Carina were, Sarah was still resting, he handed the pictures and recorder back to Carina, and at the question in her eyes he nodded resignedly, so she pulled out her phone to invoke Plan B for Morgan as well as her father. With that, she packed up what they had in the suite, Chuck picked up his sleeping wife and they left.

On the way home, Carina split her time between talking quietly to Chuck in the cockpit, and watching Sarah as she slept in the main cabin. The fact that Sarah would need to be the one to follow up the number that Shaw gave her worried them, especially Chuck, she'd already been pushed to the limit by today's events and he didn't want her to go through any more. Carina pointed out that there may be a way around that, if Kate was willing to stand in for her. That possibility cheered up a Chuck a little, but he didn't want to put Kate through it either, or any of them. Still, it was another possibility which could spare Sarah more pain and he appreciated it. He also called to check the situation at Emma's and was told that Bryan had taken her and Molly back to Barstow (where they'd have a small army to protect them) and Mary had stayed at the house with the half strike team to wait for Ryker (she'd gone with Bryan and was planning to play Emma when Ryker turned up). Carina had called them when Shaw told Sarah that Ryker was on his way, but at the time there were more important things to address than fill Chuck in on the details of a situation that was already being handled.

Once home, Ellie gave Sarah a sedative and Chuck put her to bed in the Bunkers while he and the others went over what had happened, especially in Sarah's talk with Shaw. While they were disturbed by what she did to him, they could understand after the threat he'd made to her children, Molly and, by association, Emma. Even though he wanted to spare Sarah, Chuck wasn't about to bring up the idea of Kate stepping in for her as they went forward with contacting the people who were behind Shaw, so Carina did, and of course Kate said that she'd do it immediately. They quickly took down the images of Kate and Chuck that Shaw had used in an attempt to turn Sarah, as it made both of them uncomfortable to see them again. Stephen and Jeff had been tracing everything that they could relating to the number that Shaw gave Sarah, but the most that they could determine was that the phone was currently in LA and active. Chuck took over Stephen's role in the investigation and gave him another job to do, creating reasonably accurate facsimiles of Jaqueline and Levi that were capable of fooling your average doctor that they were living babies for a short time as quickly as possible, if Kate was going to try this, she'd need the babies with her, and real children were not going to be involved.

Stephen once again proved his genius in the inventing field by coming up with a couple of dolls that Ellie said would be sufficient to fool a doctor within a day and a half. By that stage Sarah had recovered enough to be able to make the call and hold it together (there was too much chance of the other side using voice analysis to risk anyone else trying to make the call), and they had set Kate up with implanted recording and tracking devices that she could turn on or off in case she was scanned (to go with the communication devices she already had), and suitable prosthesis to convince a doctor that she had had children within the last six months. They also set up the majority of the Council security force to cover any operation, so that they could ensure that help wasn't too far away from Kate if she went through with this.

Sarah made the call, and talked to a man who made every attempt to sound kindly and assure her that they would help her get out of the situation she'd found herself in, and start a new life for herself and her children, he gave her the time and place to meet the people that would get her away from there and they finished the call. On the given day, Sarah took Kate's place at the office, and a bit before the appointed time, Kate took the "babies" out to a minivan that was made up to look like Sarah's Hunter van and drove off, shadowed by one of their security team as always, he ended up in hospital for a couple of weeks when the other side T-boned his car with a truck, but he made a full recovery in due time. When Kate arrived at the rendezvous, she was taken into a large van and found a couple of familiar faces who weren't supposed to be there, Hugo Panzer and Jill Roberts. Panzer and the other men in the van were leering at her and quite looking forward to the expected show when they told her to strip, because they had to examine her to make sure that she didn't have any bugs on her. Kate just looked at them and said that there was no way that she was taking her clothes off with them in the van and the wanton lust on Panzer's face grew as he moved towards her, saying that it he was going to have fun with this as he reached for her. In the space of less than ten seconds Kate broke every major bone in his hand, wrist and arm, tearing loose tendons and ligaments and ensuring that he would never regain the proper use of his right hand or arm, crushing his testicles and doing some other damage for good measure before throwing him back into the other men. They had been gathering themselves to attack her in force to overpower her, but seeing how easily and quickly she'd destroyed the one that they were all afraid of, they all backed off, looking for directions on what to do.

Jill Roberts had gone white at what she'd just witnessed, but she was apparently even more afraid of the ones she worked for than she was of "Sarah" because she told the others to take Panzer and get out before telling her that she still had to examine her, and the babies, to ensure that they didn't have any bugs on them anywhere. When the men had left and they'd covered the windows, Kate undressed and submitted to an examination, but infused her demeanour with enough menace to make Jill do a fairly perfunctory examination of both her and the "babies" before she got dressed in the jumpsuit that was provided and the "babies" were wrapped up and ensconced in the bassinet that came with the van. A few more of the men were killed or seriously injured before Jill told them to leave off trying to shackle "Sarah", and Kate insisted that she wasn't going to ride with sleazebags like that, and that they had to throw all of them except the driver and his off-sider up front out, to find a different way back to wherever they were going. Given that at this rate all the men in the team would be dead or in hospital before they got back unless she did something, Jill told the men to get out and the van drove off, leaving "Sarah's" clothes, the bassinet and what the "babies" were wearing at the rendezvous site.

The Security team snipers had tagged the van and the cars that accompanied it with trackers while they were stopped, along with repeater devices to amplify the signals emanating from Kate's implanted recording, communications and tracking devices on the van. They had UAVs, Falcons and Valkyrie's overhead in full stealth mode and more forces on the ground, if there was any sign from Kate that anything was going wrong they'd be going in fast and hard.

On the off chance that Jill may be able to pick up something out of place in a conversation, Kate just answered any attempts from her to talk with a menacing glare, Sarah's opinion of Jill was well known, so that would be in character for her. Inside, Kate was frightened, she had offered to do this and wanted to help, and she knew that help wasn't far away, but at that moment she was here, alone with the enemy and there was a very real chance that help wouldn't get to her in time if anything went wrong. Chuck and Sarah talked to her and assured her that they were right there and they would be in as fast as they could if she needed them, which made her feel a little better.

When the ride finished, she was let out of the van in a warehouse and directed over to a large flat screen set up on a table (directed as none of the men who had seen her in action was prepared to get within arms' reach of her), she made them all back off and took the bassinet with the "babies" with her, putting it down in front of her when she stopped in front of the table and fussing over them a little before standing to look at the screen, the cameras must have already been active because as soon as she looked at the screen it lit up. The figure of the tall, imposing black man in a suit casually leaning against a desk on screen made her eyes (along with everyone watching the image via the camera contacts she was wearing) widen in shock. She didn't need to act at all to show how shocked she was when the man said smiled and "Hello Sarah, are you ready to work for me again?", because this man was supposed to be DEAD!

**A/N: For those who didn't like what Sarah did to Shaw, this wasn't a return of the wildcard enforcer, this was a new mother still dealing with post-natal issues who happens to be one of the deadliest killing machines in the world reacting to a bastard threatening her babies, her adopted sister and her mother, in my world the reaction could be justified.**


	22. Bad Pennies 2

**As usual, no rights to any characters portrayed not created here, thanks guys.**

**Wilf, this Jill's for you ;)**

The rest of the team (including Jeff) were in Castle, hooked into the feeds coming from Kate's recording devices and all the feeds from the Council equipment monitoring and tracking her as they talked to her via her implanted communications gear, all except for Casey and Carina who'd slipped out ASAP to join up with the Strike Team responsible for Kate's rescue.

As soon as Chuck came out of the shock of seeing Graham on the screen, his fingers flew over the keyboard, streaming the feed to the General in a matter of seconds before slapping the table to get Jeff's attention so that they both started working madly to try and identify and trace the signal used for the video conference feed. They had a considerable amount of signal analysis gear in the UAVs hanging around the warehouse in stealth mode (as well as some in the "babies" at Kate's feet), and they were trying to use them to isolate the A/V feed and get traces working on it ASAP, while simultaneously trying to isolate and block cell phone signals, to prevent the bombs that the strike team had identified upon entering the building from being set off remotely. Unfortunately they weren't 100% successful with these goals.

The first priority for the strike team (and all of them) was to extract Kate to a position of safety at the very first chance they got. Casey, Carina and the first strike team were already inside the warehouse, using active camouflage to hide their presence as they crept closer to Kate. Casey and Carina's sole job was to get to Kate, wrap her in a protective blanket (essentially a large sheet of the liquid armour material used in the tactical suits) and get her the hell out of there the second they got the signal, or deemed the situation dangerous. It was the strike team's job to capture or neutralise everyone else in the building and recover any useful materials they found while covering their extraction of Kate. To that end, as soon as they entered the building, everyone inside (except Kate) was identified and allocated to someone on the strike team to handle and they were moving into position as they waited for the signal. When they'd sighted the charges set around the building to bring it down, it added a complication, but it wasn't totally unexpected.

Unfortunately, it was the core team who were the most caught out by Graham's appearance, few of the strike team had ever seen him and he didn't mean anything to them, so they weren't affected at all, and the same went for Jeff. Carina, Kate and Zondra knew who he was, and that he was supposed to be dead so they were initially shocked, but they managed to shake it off fairly quickly as they hadn't really had many dealings with the man. It was Chuck, Casey, Sarah and the General who were the most dumbstruck, as they'd been working closely with the man and he was part of the Intersect Project at the time he was supposedly killed (Sarah especially as she'd worked for Graham directly for over seven years). Surprisingly, it was Chuck who'd managed to recover first and get moving on what he had to do, and it was his slap on the table to get Jeff moving that managed to break Sarah out of her shocked state, so that she could start feeding Kate the expected responses for Graham over her implanted sub-dermal speaker. Carina had to grab Casey to break him out of his stupor (which was basically why he blamed himself for what happened), and the General was babbling enough to put Chuck to shame, but luckily his terse cry of "BUSY!" was enough to cut through her fog of shock and cut off her tirade abruptly.

When Sarah started feeding Kate her responses, they got Graham talking, but he looked a bit dubious, and they were only about ten minutes into the discussion when he suddenly broke off and grabbed for the phone sitting on the desk behind him. It was Sarah, the consummate professional, who forgot the code word at that moment and just screamed out "RUN!". Luckily the breach of protocol didn't matter as Casey, Carina and the strike team got the message loud and clear, Casey leapt into action, closing the distance to Kate and wrapping her up in the protective blanket as he scooped her up and ran for the door with her, while Carina ran blocker, taking out anyone and everyone who got in their way. The Strike Team performed their functions flawlessly, taking out the snipers up in the rafters and the immediate threats on the floor before tranqing the few individuals on the other side who'd been identified as potentially having valuable intel and scooping them up to run for the doors themselves. Unfortunately, while Casey and Carina managed to get out the door with Kate in time, not all of the Strike Team got out before the charges set around the building went up. When they analysed the equipment and signals in the post operation analysis, the phone and bandwidth that had been used for the bomb signal was an older one on a bandwidth that was hardly used any more, so Chuck and Jeff's frantic efforts to lock out all the expected cell signals didn't stop that one getting through.

While the top priority for the operation had been to get Kate out safely, which they did, the safety of their entire team was important to them, so it hit them all hard that they'd lost three Strike Team members and had four more in Intensive Care (as well as the one who'd been taken out earlier when they'd T-boned his car with a truck). The sense of loss that they felt started the blame game (directed at themselves though, not at each other). Casey was determined that it was his fault, as he thought Graham must have seen something when Carina had to grab him to get him moving after they saw Graham up on the screen. Kate was certain that she'd said or done the wrong thing to tip Graham off (and felt guilty because the operation was to rescue her in the first place). Sarah was sure that the blame was her's because it took her so long to start feeding Kate responses, or she'd been too slow on an expected response, and that had tipped Graham off. The General thought that she'd distracted Chuck and the others and put them off their game. Chuck felt guilty because he hadn't identified and blocked the right frequency for the bomb, and also thought that his and Jeff's investigations could have resulted in a signal spike that showed up somewhere (because they didn't have time to be subtle or stealthy). Carina and the surviving Strike Team members (including the ones in hospital) all thought that they may have done something to tip them off in the warehouse. Jeff felt guilty because they hadn't managed to stop the bomb signal, while Zondra and Ellie felt guilty because they thought that they hadn't done enough to help. Basically, everyone who had been involved in the operation thought that it may have been their fault that things went sideways and some of their team members were killed, and truth be told any of the things they'd identified could have been part of the reason, or it may have just been Graham's rampant paranoia or even something totally unrelated, but the end result was that none of them felt good about the operation, outside of the fact that Kate was safe.

None of the other side got out of the warehouse alive, though, they'd managed to get Jill almost to the door when the building went up, but the blast put the strike team member carrying her in the ICU, even with the protection of his tactical suit, so without any protection Jill didn't have a chance of surviving, and none of the others even came close to getting out of the building. They did manage to recover some equipment from the wreckage (including parts of the remote trigger for the bombs) that gave them some leads to other locations for the enemy, but of course by the time they got there, they'd been cleaned out. The same applied when they got to the site that they'd traced the A/V signal that Graham was using to (not that surprising really, given that it took them over an hour to get to Chicago), but they did get three things out of the debacle. First, they knew that the bastard was alive, somehow. Second, they knew where he was at that time and they could start their searches there to try and trace where he'd gone from there, and third, they now knew who was behind the people they were up against. It made sense, they'd already worked out that the operation was being run by people who knew the spy game back to front, so the idea that Graham was involved fit that pretty damn well, now that they knew he wasn't dead, like he was supposed to be.

When the rest of Sarah's siblings heard about the warehouse explosion, they were all on the phone straight away to make sure that the girls (and Chuck) were OK. Now that they knew that they had a family, they wanted to be able to spend time together, but the only time that they'd ever taken the risk of being together was when the twins were born, because they couldn't risk being seen together until this operation to root out the corruption throughout the branches of government that they were all working on with the team was done. Unfortunately, it was pretty obvious from how the operation had gone so far that would be some time yet before they'd able to put together enough evidence to take them all down, so it was keeping their family apart. In the meantime, the most they could do was call each other on the Hunter secure phones that they'd been supplied with to keep in touch, so the phones got a lot of use.

Chuck's parents weren't too happy, either, because Mary had to wait at Emma's for over a week and a half for Keiran Ryker and his team to come for Molly (and Emma), and after twenty years of being stuck in a frozen limbo in Russia, Mary didn't handle waiting well. As a result, when they burst into the house to grab the baby, and Emma if she didn't put up a fight, there were seven bullet ridden corpses laying around the room after just over twenty seconds, and the walls had more than a few bullet holes, too. She didn't take it too well when her son pointed out (not too subtly) that they'd been hoping to interrogate Ryker to try and get intel on the people he was working for now, but obviously that was out of the question now. On top of that, with Mary being away for over a week and a half, Stephen had had a setback and he was being petulant and childish again, even the Horsefly project (¼ scale UAV drone versions of the Falcons that were weaponised with gun pods or bombs, as well as carrying a heap of scanning and recording gear and retaining the performance characteristics of the Falcons and Valkyries) wasn't enough to cheer him up, which was cause for concern, quite aside from seeing how close to the edge he obviously still was if separation from Mary could set him off that quickly.

Chuck and Jeff had already initiated the search for Langston Graham, starting at the location that he'd been transmitting from in Chicago and spiralling out from there. Carina and Zondra headed up the search on the ground (as they were the only faces that Graham didn't know, if he saw the rest of them he'd rabbit, probably before they could catch him), backed by one of their Strike Teams. As it was a domestic case and they could show evidence (only partly fabricated) that it fell under the FBI's bulwark, they would manage to get Diana assigned to head up the FBI team that was officially handling the case, while they were officially assisting the FBI. The General would also co-opt Thomas onto the team to assist and serve as the NSA liaison, as well. Down the track this would create an issue, though, because when Zondra and Tommy (Thomas) ended up getting together, it caused friction between Carina and Zondra, Carina couldn't get her head around why she was angry about the fact that they were together, she should be glad that her friend found a nice guy, but it was the fact that that guy was her BROTHER that was causing problems, she couldn't work out how to handle this family stuff.

Sarah was going through a bad time though, and much as Chuck wanted to help her with it, she was sure that there was nothing that he could do about it. She still had some post natal depression issues hanging over her head, and doing what she did to Shaw hadn't helped with that, but the thing that was really messing with her head was Graham. While he was "dead", she'd been progressing fairly well (with Chuck's help) with putting the bad years behind her and moving forward as a woman, wife and mother (while managing to retain her identity as a spy), but now he was back, he'd dragged all that shit back into her life with him. She knew that Chuck accepted her past as a part of her, and didn't love her any less for it, it was her that was having trouble with it. Now that Graham was back, it was if he was rubbing her face in everything that she'd been made to do from the time he blackmailed her into doing his bidding to save her father's life (though in hindsight, she should have just let him kill the bastard, the world would probably be a better place now if he had), the filthy, perverted sex, killing, torture, destroying innocent people's lives, while she was doing his bidding she'd been a monster, with him dead she thought she'd managed to pack that monster up and bury it with him, but now? What if Graham was just back to remind her that her internal monster was alive and well, too? Look what she did to Shaw, yeah, he may have deserved it, but the wife and mother, the person she was trying to become doesn't smash through an "unbreakable" barrier to grab someone's head and pulp it because they made a crack about her children and sister, does she? She looked at the family picture on the bedside table, the one of her and Chuck sitting there holding the twins and looking happy, did she really deserve that or would Graham's Wildcard Enforcer come out again and put them in danger? When she heard a voice behind her, her hand dove under her pillow for the knife there (old habits die hard) before she realised that it was Chuck's voice, and only then did what he'd said register. "Yes, you do deserve that, because a large part of the good in that picture is you."

She turned to look at him and he came to sit beside her (after swinging past their babies to check on them), when he was beside her, holding her hands and looking into her eyes he said "You're not a monster, and you're not the Enforcer any more." At that her eyes grew wide and she asked, almost in a whisper "Can you read minds now, when did that start?" When he laughed she looked stricken and tried to pull away from him, but he held on tight as he apologised for laughing, kissing her and pulling her into his arms. She kept struggling to pull away from him until he said in her ear, "I can't read minds but I do have ears, and you've been having nightmares every night since Graham showed up." She stopped struggling at that and he pulled back to look at her, kissing her tears away and explaining that all the nightmares had been pretty much the same (except for one where she'd apparently been Anikin and Graham was Palpatine), Graham would tell her it was time to come back to her proper place and she'd fight against it, but she'd end up giving in and going back to being what she was before she met him, and just now she'd been looking at their picture with anguish and shame on her face, so there wasn't much doubt about what she was thinking. He pulled her chin up to look her in the eyes again and told her that she wasn't that person any more, she never really was inside, and there was no way that she'd go back to that life again, she couldn't do it, and she had too much proof here (waving at their babies) of the good in her to come close to falling back into that trap. She melted into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her again, asking "You know that we're going to get through this together and you're going to be fine, don't you?" She nodded with her face still planted in his chest and slid her arms around him to pull herself closer into him. After a while she sat up, wiping her tears away, and looked at him with a bemused expression "You were joking about the Star Wars thing, right?" He smiled as he shook his head, saying "Actually, no, it was a surprise but you were definitely coming out with lines like where Anikin was turning into Darth Vader." She looked mildly horrified and said "That's it, I'm never watching those stupid movies with you again!", but at least she was smiling and almost laughing, and that was something she desperately needed just then. When she was feeling a little better, he looked in her eyes and told her "You're not alone, and we can't live without you, we need you.", kissing the top of her head as she moulded herself into his chest again and nodded.

In the hours following Kate's rescue, their search for Graham wasn't going well, on one hand that wasn't too surprising given how careful they (presumably he) had been to date to hide what they were doing and not leave any trails that could be followed back to them, but on the other hand, a 6' 5" black man running in a suit, surrounded by a bunch of scary looking military types, since when doesn't that attract attention? They managed to get a few hits off traffic and security cameras around the site Graham was using for the video conference and saw that he'd bolted with his security guys straight after he'd triggered the bombs, driving off in three black SUVs (at least he was still predictable with that), the plates had been stolen off other cars, but they'd managed to track them to another part of Chicago before they lost them, so they had Carina, Zondra, and half of their team (Diana and Thomas were still days away from being pulled into the case at that point) combing that area for leads leading back to Graham, while the other half of the team was sent after the tech guys. When Graham took off with his protective detail in the SUVs, they'd left a large white van there, and as they watched the camera footage, they saw a group of tech guys come out with all the gear from the site, load it into the van and take off, they'd only had one military type left with them for security, so while the primary focus was obviously getting their hands on Graham and finding out what these guys were after, the tech team with one guard would be a much softer target, and if they could get their hands on that gear they should be able to get some good intel out of it, so the other half of Carina and Zondra's team was sent after them.

They took out the security guy and captured the tech team fairly easily (they weren't at all interested in arguing with the scary looking people with guns), grabbing them just before they wiped the gear. Stephen had sent two of the Horsefly prototypes up to Chicago with them to provide them with extra fire-power if they needed it, so they talked the guys on site through disconnecting and removing the bomb from the one which wasn't configured as a gunship, which then left room for all the computer, communications and other gear inside, once it was packed up, they just sent the commands for it to return to LA so they could go through the gear and get what they could out of it, as the Horsefly was only 14' long it had no trouble landing in the courtyard of the apartments. Then they took the tech guys in to be interviewed (yes, interviewed, there was little chance that they actually knew anything much about Graham's organisation, but they could provide useful leads to someone like Chuck on where to look, so an informal interview with him would probably get more out of them than a serious interrogation would).

While the other guys were collecting the gear and the tech guys, Carina, Zondra and the rest were combing the area where Chuck and Jeff had lost Graham and his detail, they found the SUVs, but the area didn't really have any camera coverage (why they'd lost them), so they couldn't tell whether they'd switched to other transport, or were in one of the buildings nearby. Chuck was in the process of hacking into any imaging satellites that had been over Chicago in the last few hours to try and find out, but if they'd downloaded what they'd captured already, he had no quick way of getting access to those images, because he'd have to hack into the servers down on the surface as well to get those, and he hadn't had time to do that yet. As Chuck was a bit short of magic just then (and temper, everyone was giving him a wide berth as they were being told to "Fuck Off and let me get this done!" in 25 -30 different languages, maybe more, the rest of them didn't now most of the languages he was cursing in), Carina and Zondra split up the team and went about it the old fashioned way, knocking on/kicking down doors looking for Graham or information about where he went. Sometimes the old tried and true methods work, because they found a nice old lady who told them that the men had pulled up in those black cars out there and got into some other cars (a big black one like the movie stars ride in, and three or four other ordinary cars) and drove off about two hours ago. Carina called the information in to Chuck, but they spent the next five minutes hurling obscenities at each other in Lithuanian, because what Chuck said (in Lithuanian) when he picked the phone up was rough enough to even offend her. Eventually Chuck calmed down enough to apologise grudgingly and Carina gave him the time and information to try and chase up. She stood there looking at her phone for a few minutes after they'd hung up and then moved off for some privacy and called Sarah.

Sarah was a bit short when she answered, too, as Chuck had even gone off at her because he was flat out trying to get into the satellites and everything else to find Graham on his own. When Carina indicated that that was what she was calling about, Sarah started to say that she didn't have the time for this, but Carina cut across what she was saying to ask "When Chuck did acquire the vocabulary to shock Spetsnaz troopers and make ME blush, and since when does he abuse anyone who comes near him in that many languages?" Sarah stopped as she turned to look across the room at her husband as he sent Jeff scurrying away from him again and slowly said "I...don't…know.", only half hearing Carina saying that if this business was sending Chuck into overload, and if it caused him to have a meltdown, they were all screwed, pointing out that there were more important things than the fate of the world when it came to Chuck. Sarah had tears in her eyes and she said "wait" a few times to Carina as she crossed the room to grab Ellie by the arm and drag her into one of the conference rooms, shutting the door. She put her phone on speaker and dropped it on the table, collapsing into a chair and putting her head in her hands as she mumbled to Carina that she was on speaker and Ellie was there, asking her to tell Ellie what she'd just told her. Carina could tell from the sound of her voice that she was about ready to lose it, too, now that she'd been made to face the possibility that Chuck was falling apart, so she quietly told her that they'd fix this and he'd be fine before addressing Ellie and going over what she'd been saying to Sarah.

When Ellie heard what Carina had to say, she went white, too, as she hadn't considered that the load on Chuck could be pushing him to the verge of a breakdown, but it now that had been brought up, it did appear that the overload may be causing the Intersect to be playing up as well, as some of these languages and certainly THAT language weren't anything that Chuck had ever used before, so they had to be coming from somewhere, and the only thing that made any sense was the Intersect. They conferenced Stephen in and Ellie had to yell at him to get him to focus. After hearing what they had to say, he agreed that it sounded like Chuck's stress and emotional overload from losing the Strike Team members and having Graham back from the dead was causing his Intersect to malfunction, but his only answer when they asked him what to do was "Turn him off." Ellie started telling him he wasn't making any sense, but Sarah stood up without a word, walked to the door, drew her pistol and put three tranq darts into Chuck from across the room. Ellie spun around to look at Sarah, and Chuck, in shock and then relaxed and smiled as she turned back to the phone to tell her father that Sarah had turned him off, and that he needed to log in and help Jeff with the searches while Chuck was off-line. She heard Carina say "That's my girl" proudly before she signed off.

Out in the main room, the General (over a video conference from up on the wall) was demanding to know what Sarah was doing, they'd lose Graham if they couldn't track him down now. Sarah turned to face the screen (and therefore the camera) and said that when it came down to the choice of losing Graham or losing her husband, she'd take Graham any day. The General said that she wasn't making any sense, but before the exchange could get (more) heated, Ellie stepped in to explain that Carina had contacted them when she noted the serious irregularities in Chuck's behaviour, and when they'd brought her father in they agreed that all the load on Chuck when he was trying to do everything himself had pushed him to the point where the Intersect was starting to malfunction. Her father had said that the only way to stop this getting any further out of hand was to "Turn him off", and that was just what Sarah did. She looked into the camera and told the General that she and Sarah were not going to lose Chuck over this, no matter what the stakes were, so Chuck had to have a chance to recover, or reboot, whatever he wanted to call it. The General backed down when she'd had her face rubbed in just how bad the situation could have gone, and signed off, asking that she be informed of any developments. When Sarah went to go to Chuck and he wasn't there, she looked around wildly, to see Jeff pointing down the hall, she followed his finger to see Casey gently carrying Chuck off to one of the rooms to put him to bed, and she flashed Jeff a grateful smile before following them.

Ellie went to Jeff and asked if he could do what he could with the searches that Chuck had been trying to run, he just smiled and said "Sure", sitting down at the workstation Chuck had been using. Jeff wasn't anywhere near the hacker that Chuck was, but one thing he was a genius at was reverse engineering code, so with Chuck's hacks on the screen in front of him, it didn't take him too long to pick up where Chuck left off and get the searches moving again, it may not have been anywhere near as quick as Chuck was doing it, but they weren't dead in the water, far from it. Stephen had also jumped in as well, like Jeff, he wasn't anything like Chuck, but he'd been doing a quite serviceable job of this for decades and between them, they were doing OK.

In Chicago, reports of "Storm Troopers in Stilettos" (the description being tossed around from some of the guys that Carina and Zondra had rousted, trying to get information about Graham) on a rampage meant that the General had to organise their efforts into something that could stand up to some public scrutiny, she got the team to put together enough of the information in a form that another agency would swallow and contacted her counterpart in the FBI to get them to put a team in place to follow up the matter, she suggested that Special Agent Diana Berrigan had a history with the matter, and her people, and therefore she would have an advantage over other agents when it came to running the case. She also assigned Carina and Diana's brother, Thomas Muller, as the NSA agent working the case to give them what support and assistance they may need, they'd almost pushed Chuck too far, she wasn't about to risk doing the same with anyone else.

The tranq darts kept Chuck out for about fourteen hours, when he woke up with Sarah asleep on his chest he felt fine, until he realised that they weren't in their bedroom, they were in one of the rooms in the Bunkers and that the last thing he remembered was that he'd been trying to get into the satellites to locate Graham, and then he was here, and from the way his bladder was feeling, quite a bit of time had passed since then. He carefully slipped out from under Sarah and gently kissed her and the twins before hot footing it to the bathroom, heading out to the main room about ten minutes later feeling greatly relieved. Jeff, Casey and Ellie were clustered around a workstation and he headed over to give them a hand, but Ellie cut him off and told him to turn around and head to the medical bay, as he was getting a full check-up including scans. When Chuck said he was fine, Casey just snorted and gave his "yeah, right!" grunt, so Chuck asked him what he meant by that. Ellie tried to diffuse the situation by saying that he'd had a bit of a meltdown yesterday and things got a little out of hand and Sarah had to shoot him to shut him down (this last mumbled in hope he wouldn't hear it, but of course that was what he DID hear). "Sarah did WHAT? "I shot you, with tranq darts, because you were heading into a major meltdown." Sarah had just walked into the room to hear what Ellie said. "Why would you do that? I wasn't having a meltdown, I was trying to hunt Graham down, and now we may have lost him!" At that Casey turned around, saying "Hey, Chuck." when Chuck turned to look at him, he asked "What does this mean?" and pausing for a second to ensure he repeated it properly he came out with one of the worst of the Lithuanian obscenities that had come out the day before. Chuck blanched, then blushed, then stuttered as he said "That's, that's disgusting, you need to keep that to the locker room where you heard it." Casey looked him in the eye as he said "I heard it here, from YOU when you said it to Carina!" Chuck went white, saying that he'd never say anything like that, especially not to one of the girls, until he saw Sarah and Ellie nodding grimly. At that point, all he could say was "What?" Ellie gently took him by the arm and led him to the medical bay to run the tests on him, and Sarah went with them to explain to him what had happened the day before.


	23. Taps

**Standard disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed unless created here.**

Once Chuck got the story about what he'd said to Carina and the rest of them, he walked a little way away and pulled out his phone. When Carina answered, he gave her a heartfelt apology in her mother's native tongue. She'd had the past fourteen hours to get over it, and she'd known even then that it wasn't him (once she'd backed off from the DEFCON 1 setting she was at when she was first on the phone with him, anyway), so she just laughed it off and told him he owed her a hug, with that he signed off, hung up and went back to Sarah and Ellie. Sitting down, he asked what they'd discussed about the probable reason for what happened to him?

Ellie went through what they'd thought contributed to the episode, with Sarah interjecting when she felt necessary from her position at Chuck's side, holding his hand. First Ellie brought up the guilt and worry (almost panic) he'd felt about using Kate as bait for an operation of this nature, knowing just how much risk she was putting herself in by going into a situation like that alone, with no protection, he nodded at that, accepting the obvious truth of the statement. Then she raised the issue of the shock of seeing Langston Graham, obviously alive even though they'd been told he was blown up, and the fact that his brain would have been going a mile a minute trying to work out just how he could be alive, and he would've been dredging up every piece of information that related to his "death" (no matter how small) from both his memory and the intersect, trying to work out how he'd been fooled like everyone else, also pointing out that, at the same time, he was frantically trying to isolate and trace or block both the A/V and bomb trigger signals, so between the three operations he was effectively at wide open throttle, he was giving everything he had to try and do these three things (each big enough to occupy a person's whole attention by themselves) all at the same time.

"And then the building exploded." That statement hit him like the actual explosion had, remembering and thinking about all the things he'd been doing frantically up to that point suddenly stopped as the memory of the explosion painted itself across his mind, watching camera feeds cutting out from the ones who died or were hospitalised as their cameras were smashed like their bodies, watching the explosion grow in the external camera feeds, and feeling the guilt that he had failed to stop this, that he was responsible for all the people who'd died, at the same time he was also getting flashbacks to another building as it went up, the one that only he'd escaped alive. When his head was rocked by the slap that his wife had just delivered, he realised that both she and Ellie had been calling to him, shouting at him, ever since Ellie said that line. Chuck put his hands up to indicate that he was back and Sarah threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and crying. Ellie stood back with tears glistening in her eyes as well and shakily said "Well, I think we've found the trigger."

When they were all up to it, they went on with what had been going on in Castle after the explosion, they'd felt relief that Kate, Carina and Casey were safe and well outside, and growing pain and guilt as the list of the dead and seriously injured from the strike team came out (as well as the knowledge that no-one else had gotten out of there alive). It was then that they'd all started blaming themselves for what happened, and they were so tied up in trying to second guess what they'd done or didn't do which may have changed the outcome that they weren't paying any attention to anyone else. Chuck had locked down the location that Graham had been transmitting from within five minutes of the blast, and under his orders Carina took one of the Falcons from the site there to fly back and pick up Zondra from Castle then head straight to Chicago (after Chuck had shouted Casey down and told him that even he should have been able to understand that if Graham saw him or anyone else he knew coming he'd probably get away, Sarah noted that that should have told them something, but they were still too shell shocked to pick up on it). Chuck had also sent a directive to Barstow to scramble another strike team and get them to Chicago ASAP in the remaining Valkyrie at the base, so Carina, Zondra and the Strike Team all got to Chicago a bit over an hour after the blast. Meanwhile Chuck was frantically trying to trace all of Graham's movements via any resources that he could get access to, Jeff was helping where he could but hacking into the security and computer systems was Chuck's area of excellence, and he was carrying the vast majority of the load as he frantically hacked, checked and flipped systems one after the other, he started swearing when he got into systems to find that they had nothing of use and then jumped straight onto the next one. They'd been surprised when he started swearing, but it'd started off fairly tame and they thought it was just natural frustration that he'd wasted time when time was of the essence, over the next couple of hours, though, the swearing and behaviour escalated, keeping pace with his frustration, to the point where he'd even tiredly told Sarah to fuck off and let him work, it wasn't said with the vehemence of the abuse he'd been throwing at everyone else, but it'd still stung, and soon after that was when Carina called.

The thing was, Carina had been flying or in Chicago chasing Graham for the entire time that this had been building up, so she hadn't been there to watch him get frustrated and get used to (aggravated and angry, but used to) him going off at everyone. That meant that when he'd answered her call the way he did, she'd exploded, but it also meant that once she'd gotten past her rage, she asked the question that they all should have been asking, "What the fuck has happened to Chuck?" That, of course led to her calling Sarah to pull her out of her funk, thereby making her stop and think too. Once Carina had managed to wake Sarah up, she'd grabbed Ellie and they got Stephen on the line to confirm that there was obviously something going wrong with Chuck's Intersect, and that led to Stephen telling them that they needed to "Turn him off" to get him out of the loop that was burning him out. Ellie grinned when she said that she'd been shocked when Sarah shot him, but when she saw him slump out of his chair, unconscious, she'd realised that Sarah had, in fact, found the way to "Turn him off." (and almost certainly saved him, she added as an aside). They'd brought him back to the apartments and settled him down in the Bunkers where their medical equipment was, and that was pretty much the story up to the point where he woke up with his overprotective wife wrapped around him.

Sarah looked at Ellie when she said "overprotective wife" and Ellie shrugged, saying that whenever they came to check on Chuck while he was out she was wrapped around him and wouldn't let anyone else near him, and she gave a guilty little grin at that. Chuck grinned too and kissed the top of her head (she was still snuggled into his neck) and asked Ellie if they had any theories about what set it all off, starting to nod when Ellie said "Well, obviously guilt", but arguing with her when she went on to say that he'd felt guilty for what happened even though there was really nothing he could have done to stop it. He started pushing the fact that he'd blocked some cell phone signals, but if he hadn't made an error and picked the wrong signal sectors to start with, the bombs wouldn't have gone off, so it WAS his fault. Sarah pulled away enough to look at him as she said "Chuck, no, there's no way you would have found the right frequency in time, because, wait, there it is." and hopped off his lap to go to the table where they had a pile of paperwork, hunting through it until she found the document she needed and bringing it back to hand to him. As Chuck read the report on the phone that had been used in the trigger and the bandwidth that it was using he mused "I didn't know that that bandwidth was still active?" Sarah (and Ellie) nodded at that and she said that he couldn't have known to try and stop that bandwidth because they'd used something so old that no-one could have expected it to work, so he couldn't blame himself for failing to stop the signal that set the bomb off. He nodded, not totally accepting her position on that, but relieved to know that it wasn't a simple error on his part that got those people, and especially the members of his team, killed.

With the crisis averted, Sarah wanted to know where the language had actually come from, because as Ellie had said, it wasn't Chuck, so she asked him when he'd (as Carina so eloquently put it) acquired the vocabulary to shock Spetsnarz troopers and make Carina blush? Chuck looked at her at that and she shrugged, saying "Her words.", he nodded as he thought about it, the only thing that he could come up with was that they must have included a thesaurus of obscenities in all languages somewhere in the Intersect at some stage to make covers more believable (rough characters would generally be regarded suspiciously if they didn't swear like troopers on occasion), and the incident must have opened a link into that thesaurus. She nodded at that, but looked him in the eye and told him that she didn't want to see any reappearance of that, especially not directed towards her and not in front of their children! Chuck looked in shock at her, saying "I didn't?", looking crestfallen when she nodded, saying that he'd told her to fuck off once, but kept the rest of his repertoire for everyone else, at that Chuck wrapped his arms around her, whispering "I'm sorry". He looked at Ellie and she said that she'd gotten off lightly, all she'd been on the receiving end of was a "Can't you see that I'm fucking busy?" and she'd steered clear of him after that. She'd still remembered how testy hormonal teenaged Chuck had been at times, so she didn't need to be told twice, he just grimaced and said "Sorry". When he said that he'd need to apologise to everyone for what he'd said and done, they nodded, saying that while everyone understood, what he'd done did require apologies.

With that Chuck decided that it was time to get back to work, he went back out to the main area of the Bunkers, and seeing that Jeff was the only one there he went up to start his apologies, Jeff let him off the hook easy, but said that he'd be happy NOT to see that Chuck again, that dude was nasty, and more than a little scary. With things right between them, they sat down so Chuck could get up to speed on what needed to be done. They were still running the camera (and satellite, with the ones they had access to) searches for the vehicles that Graham and his team had changed to, Chuck had managed to get some satellite images of the limo and other cars that they'd switched to, and had managed to pull license plates from some nearby traffic cams before Sarah tranqed him, so they'd had that much to work with while he was out. In Chicago, they'd taken the initial SUVs that Graham used in to try and get something off them, and they were still holding the techs that they'd captured awaiting someone to interview them. At that last, Chuck jumped on the computer to bring up the location of the nearest Falcon he could use and stood to grab a coat when Sarah said from the doorway "You're not going alone, you've been awake for less than an hour since I had to tranq you to stop you from melting down, you're not going anywhere without someone to watch you!" Her intentions as to who that someone would be were obvious, but Ellie put her hand on her arm, gently pointing out that the twins needed her here, she agreed that Chuck needed to be watched, but said that she could go to keep an eye on him, to keep him safe for both of them. That got her a teary smile and hug from Sarah and she went to pack a small bag, as they didn't know how long they'd need to be in Chicago (Chuck's was already in his van).

While they were in the air on their way to Chicago, something else occurred to him and he called Jeff to ask what happened with the equipment that they'd sent back from Chicago in the Horsefly? Jeff told him that Stephen had gone through it and pulled all the trace information that he could from it, he wasn't too pleased when Casey or Sarah kept asking about other areas "that Chuck would look at", but they'd seemed happy that they got everything important from it and they were following up those leads now. Jeff also mentioned that Sarah had insisted that the equipment be kept aside so Chuck could go through it, himself, when he had the time, just in case there was something else that had been missed. That made him smile, but soon after that he saw a text on screen from Ellie asking him to put them on a private channel, when he did so they talked about what had happened while he was out. Her first words were "She was terrified that she'd lost you." When Chuck tried to say that that wasn't going to happen, she pointed out that they still couldn't know 100% how the Intersect was going to behave, or how much control it could have over the host, not even the one that they developed themselves with their Dad, so when Carina opened their eyes to the fact that the way he was behaving was obviously not HIM, Sarah had been panicking that the Intersect had taken him over. She did concede that the fact that his response to Sarah was a lot more moderate than his responses to everyone else showed that he still had some control. She also said that her memories of him as a hormonal teenager gave her a baseline of similar behaviour from him, so to her it wasn't totally out of character for him, but Sarah was just seeing the man she loved, her husband, the father of her children, behaving like she'd never seen him do before, and she was sure that HER Chuck was gone and something else had taken over. Chuck tried to argue that she was wrong but she cut across his argument by telling him that the Chuck that they'd seen in the two hours or so before Sarah tranqed him was someone that none of them but her had ever seen before, so yes, with the information that Sarah had in front of her, it was logical to believe that her husband was gone, and for her to be afraid that she mightn't get him back. Chuck was quiet for about thirty seconds and then said "So, the slap?" He couldn't see her but knew she'd nodded as she said "Yeah, it looked like we'd managed to trigger what happened all over again, and she was desperate to get you out of that." He snorted as he said "Well, it worked!" Ellie laughed as she said "Yep, quite well actually, just proves that my hitting you to get your attention when you were growing up wasn't as wrong everyone kept telling me." "I don't know about THAT, but Ellie." "Yeah?" "I'm sorry." "It's Sarah that needs to hear that, but I'm glad that you're OK little brother."

It was a motivated Chuck who landed in Chicago, and once he'd made amends to Carina and changed into his traditional nerd attire, he had the techs brought in one by one to talk to, managing to get quite a few leads out of them. He did make a case for them in regard to the fact that there was no indication that any of them had known anything about the type of people they were involved with before they arrived at the transmission location to see all the guns, and pointed out that they were actually damn good at what they did, so at his suggestion they were offered a choice. The options they got were to go into witsec and totally leave everything they'd known behind for a boring existence without going near the technology that defined them, or come and work for the Council, they'd still be taken away from their lives and would have limited contact with the people that they loved, but they could have some, and they'd be working on interesting projects. No-one was too surprised when all of the techs chose door number two, and they were moved to Barstow to start their new lives.

Chuck and Ellie were back home less than five hours after they'd left, Chuck took Sarah aside and told her about the talk he'd had with Ellie, and he also told her about the rest of the trigger that had set him off (as she'd known about the guilt he felt about all the people who'd died in that other building when it went up while he was escaping via the cable outside the window) to get it through to her that it had taken an extraordinary combination of triggers to actually set him off. He could tell that she was still upset and worried, so he pulled her chin up to make her look him in the eye and said "And hey, you know where my off switch it now, too." which managed to get a smile, so he pulled her into his arms and whispered in her ear that he was sorry that he'd frightened her, and that he wasn't going anywhere.

After that, Chuck was back, full steam ahead with the investigation for Graham (under the watchful eyes of Sarah, Ellie and everyone else). By a combination of camera/satellite imagery and on-line activity, they traced Graham's movements for the next couple of days before losing him again, but they'd managed to establish a bit of a pattern and had some leads on other locations, and between these and the other leads that they'd put together they managed to put together a template to extend it to a world wide search. The template would give them alerts whenever any combination of the search elements came up, and from there they'd delve into the matter until it either washed out or they got a lead to something else.

Soon after this, the FBI team headed up by Diana officially took over the investigation in Chicago, with Carina, Zondra and Thomas (officially representing the DEA, CIA and NSA respectively) working with the team. Chuck and the others were feeding them information as they managed to pull it from other sources, to give them pointers of what directions to point the physical investigation in.

About a week after the explosion, Chuck and Sarah had their talk about Sarah's fears about herself, and while he didn't say anything to her, he thought that his incident may well have, in part, fueled her crisis of faith in herself, so that was another thing for him to feel guilty about.

It was relief for everyone when Ryker and his team finally turned up at Emma's and Mary took them out (though Chuck couldn't totally contain his disappointment about the fact that they'd missed out on finding out what Ryker knew, as given his position in the CIA, he may well have been high enough in the new organisation to have important intel on them). Mary's bad temper had been escalating from the second or third day at most, and anyone who contacted her felt it (leading to more than a few comments that it was obvious where the temper that Chuck had recently shown came from), so when she'd wiped out the entire team that came for Molly, that part of the operation was over with and Mary could go back to Stephen, hopefully then they'd both stop being a pain in the arse to everyone else.

About a week after Mary took out Ryker and his team, the doctors declared that the five Strike Team members still in hospital were up to attending their three team mates' funerals, so the plans that had been queued awaiting that notification were put in place. Due to the dead mens' standing with the military, they were all being interned at Arlington, and their families and loved ones had agreed to delay the funerals until the ones in hospital could attend.

The day dawned as beautiful as the one of Chuck and Sarah's wedding, they just wished that the occasion wasn't such a sombre one. The Hercules had flown up to Arlington the day before with some of the team and a few vans, everyone else flew up that morning in the Valkyries and the Falcons, they were shuttled to the cemetery in the vans, and gathered out of the way for the funerals. To the naked eye, the mens' funerals were well attended, and the rank of many of the attendees showed the regard in which they were held. For those with suitable imaging devices, however, the actual numbers of those showing their respects was far greater. Only those of the Council of military background, the men who had been in hospital and those in the security force who had known them personally (about twenty people all up) attended openly, but everyone was in attendance, and the ranks of those attending in their tactical suits, using the active camouflage to avoid being seen by anyone else, numbered over a hundred. Casey was supporting the mother of one of the men being buried who quietly told him that she understood that the team couldn't attend for security reasons, but asked him to send her thanks to them for the messages of support that they'd sent her. Casey was touched by her thinking of others at a time like this, so he pulled a set of the AR glasses that they used when they weren't wearing the tac suits from his pocket and handed them to her, telling her to look behind the people standing at the graveside.

When she saw the lines standing there paying their respects through the glasses she almost collapsed and he held her up until she'd recovered. At that point he got the notification over his comms and told her to look up, and as she did so she saw the three flights of aircraft coming in above them, using active camouflage like the ranks behind them to avoid being seen, she watched the three big planes (the Valkyries), each with a smaller plane (the Falcons) at each wingtip flying over, and as they passed over the cemetery, the Falcons at each Valkyrie's right wingtip peeled off. Anyone observing the scene would have just attributed it to her being overcome with grief at her loss, as long as they didn't see the fierce look of pride on her face when she took the glasses off and handed them back to him with thanks. He leant down to her and quietly told her that her son's and the other men's sacrifices had not been taken lightly and they would not be forgotten, no-one was prepared to forego paying their respects for them, they just wished that they could have done so more openly. She reached up to kiss him on the cheek and thanked him again, and as she left the graveside her back straightened with pride as she threw a salute to the graves behind where her son was being interned. Some of the old soldiers there could have sworn that they'd heard a muffled stomp as if ranks of soldiers had just come to attention to return the salute at that moment, but they put it down as a flight of fancy due to the emotion of the event, like the way they thought they'd heard jets somewhere in the distance just before, but they couldn't see any planes in the sky.

After the funerals, the invalids were returned to their hospital beds to finish recovering properly, and the Council's teams got back to their normal duties and the Graham hunt. They were getting frustrated by the lack of progress they were managing, and it was Casey who raised the suggestion that they think again about grabbing Clyde Decker and Lewis Goodman and interrogating them to extract what they could from them about Graham and the organisation they were working for. It was decided that that course wasn't advisable at that time, but it was telling that the majority on the Council were thinking of his suggestion as a viable option, they were getting tired of being played by the other side and they wanted to do something about it!

It was soon after that they got called in to help Bryan, not by him though, by Caracal (Bryan's daughter Kim, while she wasn't attached to the Council, after the white slavery incident when she was seventeen they'd been keeping an eye on her and therefore she'd been allocated a codename to cover references to her over the comms), Bryan and Lenore had been taken in Istanbul by people involved with the ones who took Kim in Paris. Kim had found the secure phone in the case that her father talked her through getting into and just before she ran out to do what her father told her to, she'd decided to grab the phone to try and call for help, as she knew what her father did and thought that his friends could help them if anyone could. She was in a panic so she just grabbed the phone, called the first number on speed dial (the Operations Director's number), told them that he'd been taken and dropped the phone. They'd scrambled a Strike Team in a Valkyrie for Istanbul, but even at the Valkyrie's speed, it would take a few hours to get there, if Frank could have flown one of their planes and had a Falcon there he could have been there in half an hour, but unfortunately neither of those things were true. In the meantime, a call to the Eagle got them a connection to the embassy in Istanbul with the authorisation to render any assistance possible, which was handy when Kim and Bryan crashed their way into the embassy less than an hour later. Unfortunately, Kim was overwhelmed with everything that was happening and she didn't think to tell her father about the call for help she'd made with his phone until after he'd left again to save her mother.

By the time the strike team landed in Istanbul, Bryan had already rescued Lenny and gotten her to the embassy, where he'd finally been told about the instructions they'd been given to render assistance. When he called the Council to get some help straightening out the mess that was left by everything that had happened, he'd been told that the strike team was only about fifteen minutes out, and Mary (who was holding down the job that day) told him about the call for help that Kim had made before. When he found that out, it simplified things quite a bit for him, as the Strike Team went in to clean up everything that was left of the operation that took them (along with the corrupt cops and soldiers who'd tried to stop them), then they collected everything of Bryan's, Lenny's and Kim's from the hotel and flew them home. It was a little crowded in the Valkyrie with them and the team, but it was safe, and it was only a three hour flight, the guys could handle a bit of crowding that long, easy. On the way back, Bryan came up with and sold Lenny and Kim on the story that the team and the jet were secret government business and that they couldn't tell anyone about them, ever, and the girls were just so happy to be safe again that they were fine with that, after all, by Bryan's standards it wasn't that far out anyway.

**A/N: If it makes it easier to picture for anyone, the person I had in mind when I was writing about the mother at the funeral was the character of Hartley Winterbottom's mother in the series, she was the image of a real soldier's Mum to me.**


	24. Schoolin'

**NB: In the interest of disclosure, the "Stormtroopers in Stilettos" tag wasn't mine, it was an alternate song label on the Queen album Sheer Heat Attack, but it was an image I always found intriguing.**

**As usual, no rights to any characters portrayed not created here, and thanks guys.**

When the dust had settled and people were ready to move forward, Chuck found that he had a few more jobs on his plate. The first came along when "Uncle" Bryan, Uncle Bry, dropped by after the Istanbul adventure, he'd beaten everyone he'd come up against there, but a few of those fights he'd been in had been too close for his liking. He'd been listening to Sarah, Casey, Carina, Zondra, Ellie and Kate talk about how much they'd improved under Chuck's training, so he was there to ask if Chuck would agree to work with him to get him up to speed, too? Chuck wasn't likely to say no to anyone, and certainly not to the man that he and Sarah looked up to and cared about so much, so he now had extra training sessions to fit into his schedule. When Mary found out that Bry was training with him, she asked (or more to the point, pleaded) to be allowed to join in, and as he was a nice guy, Bry said he didn't mind, so there was one more to work with (which was good, actually, because they'd all been asking him to try and get his parents under control, his Dad obviously still wasn't quite right, and since they got her out of Russia, his Mom was a loose canon, they'd had that discussion the day that Kate arrived, but she wasn't really getting any better, the way she'd decimated Ryker and his crew when they turned up, knowing that they'd wanted to get what they could out of Ryker, was proof of that).

As Bry and Mary were both based up at Barstow (along with Stephen), the obvious choice was to do the training up there, and given that he didn't want to spend any more time than he had to away from Sarah and the twins, Chuck decided to get creative with his transport options. They'd noted when they'd used the Horsefly to transport the computer and other gear back from Chicago that with the weapons payload removed, the Horsefly had a reasonable sized compartment inside, just big enough for someone of Chuck's size to squeeze into it, actually, so they reworked one of the prototypes to seal up the lower opening, line the compartment with padding and add a harness to keep him in place, along adding with manual controls, and Chuck had a personal transport that he could land in the courtyard of the apartments, that way there was no travel time other than the time it took to fly between Burbank and Barstow.

When they started the training sessions, Chuck caught up with Jimmy (Andre) to talk and he'd asked if he could join in the sessions, too, so after checking with Bry (it was really for him), Jimmy was added to the group, as well. For all the fact that both Bry and Mary had been the best in their day, by the standards of the current team, they were way behind now, he didn't have the heart to tell them that even Ferret (Jeff) could have given them a run for their money when they started, so he started them with the equivalent of the group's morning "run"s (either cross country or through the tunnels, stairwells and urban combat range in the bunkers), and made them do that at least two or three times a day, as well as all the other exercises that the team did. They hated him for that (even Jimmy, he'd thought that he was fighting fit until he talked his way into Wolf's training and learned what pain really was), but they were picking up quickly, so much so that there was a flood of requests from others on the security team to join in, Chuck referred all those requests to Bry (his show), who of course always said "Yes", and it got to the point where every session had at least fifty people in it (within weeks just about all the security team were in on the training, but they didn't all attend every session, most of them alternated to attend every second or third training session).

At Barstow, Chuck was only referred to or addressed as "Wolf" publicly, which confused the techs that Graham had been using when they saw him, because when they called out to him as "Chuck", Jimmy quickly pulled them aside and told them that they weren't allowed to call him that there, they could only call him Wolf, but when a terrifying soldier almost two foot taller than you and several times your size sternly tells you something like that, you listen (and piss yourself), so they got the message.

Jimmy quickly found out that it wasn't just fitness levels that he had a false sense of confidence about when their training sessions got to the point where they started sparring seriously, at first he didn't want to get on the mats with Chuck or the others because he thought he'd hurt them (he'd always been more powerful than anyone else he'd ever come up against), but Chuck insisted, and to get him past those fears, Chuck didn't pull back. He was careful about the placement of his hits but he hit him at full power, and Jimmy thought he'd been hit with a wrecking ball, and the way he flew across the room supported that. After that Jimmy stopped worrying about hurting Chuck (he actually started worrying about getting hurt), and he was able to get into the sparring sessions properly. He wasn't as good a sparring partner as Casey was, because he'd probably never be up to Casey's speed or power, but he was improving (quickly), and he soon could give Chuck a reasonable workout. (Sarah was, of course, better than anyone else, but Chuck could never really hit her, so their sessions were the dance of death where Sarah would attack and Chuck would counter, it gave him a good workout for speed and technique, but not for exchanging blows.)

After a month or so, Chuck cut his trips to Barstow back to once a day, they still did a lot more training than that one session a day, of course, but he only needed to be there to work with them for the martial arts and weapons trainings, really. Part of the time on each trip was set aside to talk to his parents, trying to help them get past their residual issues which were causing problems for the group. His father's issues weren't interfering with his work that much, he was still showing his brilliance as he worked on the technology and investigations for the Council (much as Chuck had been doing while he was melting down after Kate's rescue), but his behaviour was the cause for considerable concern. His mother's anger issues, though, had already cost them the chance to interrogate Ryker and worried the Council a lot, especially the original members of the Council (she'd asked Bry about that, knowing that he'd tell her the straight truth, and he had, including the fact that they'd asked Chuck to try and sort the situation out). The fact was, what both his parents needed was therapy, so they did a thorough investigation of Dr. Leo Dreyfus, the agency psychiatrist who'd managed to help Chuck once (when he was falling apart after the confrontations with Morgan and Ellie), and when he checked out as clean, Chuck went to plead their case to him. Dr Dreyfus had retired by that stage, but having one of his most interesting cases ever turn up on his doorstep to ask if he'd be prepared to take a shot at helping his parents (two more very interesting cases, from the story he was told), well it ensured that his interest was piqued enough to agree straight away to see them. Chuck got him to pack enough to be away for at least a few weeks, in case he agreed to work with them once he'd met them, and drove him to an out of the way parking lot.

When they got there, the parking lot seemed to be deserted, at least it did until the door opened on an apparently invisible plane, helicopter or something. Chuck sent him up ahead of him while he grabbed his bags, but then the van apparently just took off by itself, Dr Dreyfus stopped on the stairs to ask what the hell was going on, and Chuck just waved his bags towards the rear of the plane? saying that the van was being loaded on back there. When the doctor looked where he'd indicated, he could see the van coming around until it drove behind something else and was cut off. He just shook his head as he continued up the stairs to be greeted by Chuck's girlfriend? Agent Walker, and when he hopefully said that he was glad to see that they were still together? she smiled and nodded, saying that they were actually married now and had twins, his look of pleased shock at that got a laugh from her and she kissed him on the cheek. Once they'd let Chuck get past with the Dr Dreyfus's bags to stow them, another man that he recognised came out of the cockpit, Colonel Casey, Chuck's other partner, as they shook hands the doctor said "I see that you're still with these two, Colonel?" and Casey nodded, saying that the team worked too well to break up, though they'd had a lot of problems thrown at them. Chuck suggested that they fill Dr Dreyfus in on their viewpoints on his parents while he got the show on the road, Sarah nodded and kissed him before waving the psychiatrist to a seat. As Chuck disappeared into the cockpit, Sarah told Dr Dreyfus that he may like to put his seatbelt on as they were about to take off, settling into a seat next to Casey as she did so. Soon after that they felt a vibration and a downward push as if they were going up in an elevator which smoothly changed into a push back into the seat as if they were in an accelerating car, and the cabin tilted slightly for a bit as the plane banked before levelling off again. When the cabin had levelled off again, Sarah smiled and said "And we're off, now is there anything in particular you'd like to talk about in regard to Chuck's parents?"

He shook his head again and apologised, but told her that he was having trouble concentrating with all this science fiction stuff, invisible planes? Cars that drive themselves, where did they all come from? She smiled gently at him, agreeing that it was a bit much to take in, all at once. Without going into details she told him that the group that they worked with now, as well as the government agencies (she added when he stiffened when he obviously thought that if they weren't with the government any more, they may have been part of a rogue organisation) had access to a lot more advanced technology than the normal agencies did, and most of what they had was developed by people who were part of the group, including this plane (waving around them), which was quite fast and had VTOL capabilities, as well as the active camouflage which effectively made it invisible, they also had autonomous control (self drive) for their cars etc, which was how the van drove off to load itself into the back of the plane. None of the things they had were totally new, others were working on them too, it was just that they had the most effective versions of most of them because they had some of the best minds working for them, including Chuck's father. At that point the screen across the cabin lit up (when he saw the psychiatrist's concern about who they were working for, Casey had sent a message to the General, letting her know that they probably needed some damage control, and when she came on screen, sitting in her office in her uniform, it looked like they were getting it). The General assured Dr Dreyfus that she was still the Director of the NSA, and he was free to check on that if he liked, but the operation that he was currently being asked to assist with was for another, non-government, organisation that they were also part of which was trying to root out corruption in the traditional agencies. She also told him that the President was aware of who they were, and they were working with him on that task, adding that if it would make him more comfortable she could arrange to get the President on a video conference to talk to him, but that would take at least a day or so to organise. (He nodded to that, and taking that as him saying that he'd like that, she made a note to make it happen.) With that, she told him "When Chuck suggested that you may be able to help with his parents' problems, I was frankly dubious, as you were attached to the agencies and I didn't know whether we could trust you, but Chuck convinced us that you looked clean and were one of the best choices to help his parents. I'm hoping that Chuck is right, because Mary, his mother, is one of my oldest friends, but she hasn't really been right since she was trapped into going into a deep cover assignment for twenty years with a psychopath by the CIA, and his father hasn't been right for twenty odd years because of what he did to himself to try and find her, so we have two people who are very dear to us and who we need to succeed in the fight ahead of us, but have both been damaged by what they've gone through, and you're pretty much our last hope to help them." He looked at the screen and swallowed, saying "I'll do my best General." and she just said "Thank you." before signing off and disconnecting the call.

Dr Dreyfus looked a little stunned when he looked back at Sarah, so she helpfully asked "Would you like to talk about Chuck's parents?" That gave him what he needed to gather himself and he nodded thankfully, saying that he'd like to take some notes if he could? She nodded and hopped up to grab his briefcase, putting it beside him as she sat back down. For the rest of the flight Sarah and Casey talked about what they knew about the issues that were bothering Chuck's parents, with prompts or questions from Dr Dreyfus when he thought he needed more on specific points, this wound up quickly when Chuck's voice came over the sound system "On behalf of Valkyrie Airways, I'd like to thank you for flying with us today folks, we will shortly be landing at our secret lair, so it would be appreciated if you'd now return your seats and tray tables to their upright positions and prepare for landing." Sarah and Casey looked at each other and Sarah asked "He wouldn't pull a Chuck with a civilian on the plane would he?" Casey just snorted, saying "Of course he would!" as he leant forward to tighten Dr Dreyfus's seatbelt before putting his own on, and Sarah quickly leant forward to grab the pen and notebook from his hands and snatch up his briefcase, stuffing the pen and notebook in and closing it up quickly then hanging onto the handles as she held it in her lap (after putting her seatbelt on as well). The plane banked much harder than before, and then kicked up sharply and slowed suddenly so they were pushed against their seatbelts or back into their seats (depending on which way they were sitting) before experiencing a brief falling sensation followed by an even briefer push and they settled to the ground with just a small bump, then they could feel that the plane moving on the ground. When they felt the plane come to a stop and the door opened, Sarah handed the briefcase back to Dr Dreyfus and released her seatbelt, heading forward briskly to have words with her husband about pulling a stunt that may have gotten the passengers hurt, but she gave up when he told her that he was watching them on the security feed the whole time and wouldn't have pulled the Chuck (the team's name for his signature move to scrub off speed and drop the planes into the quickest, quietest vertical landing possible) if everyone wasn't properly strapped in, giving her that grin that she couldn't resist, she just called him an idiot and pulled him down for a kiss, which he repeated after replying "Your idiot!" With that he led the way down the stairs, as Casey had already grabbed the psychiatrist's bags.

When they exited the plane, they were inside a hangar with the doors closed behind them, so there was no way of telling where they were, there were a few military types hanging around, and off to the side some other people were working on a row of machines which looked like tiny versions of the plane they just flew in on. Now that that plane was visible, Dr Dreyfus turned around to have a good look at it, and it looked just as spacey and futuristic as he'd expected, a sleek needle that looked over 200' long with big engines to the rear. Chuck came to stand beside him, saying "We call it the Valkyrie, well them, as we have three now, but this was the original one, they're the biggest of our fast planes, we also have half a dozen one quarter scale two seat versions, called the Falcons, and a number of one sixteen scale UAVs, called the Horseflies (waving over at the row of machines that Dr Dreyfus had noted), they let us get to where we need to quickly." Dr Dreyfus gave him a curious look, asking "How quickly?" and Chuck grinned "Very quickly, I hope to be able to tell you more some day, but that will have to do for now." That got a nod from the psychiatrist, and with that, Chuck led him over to the elevator where Sarah and Casey were waiting.

As they headed down in the elevator, Chuck asked Dr Dreyfus whether he'd gotten all the information he needed about his parents? He just looked at him drolly and told him not quite, as they'd been cut off by a very interesting landing manoeuvre (that got a snicker from Sarah and a snort from Casey), but he had enough to get started, Chuck's wry grin tried, but didn't quite make it to looking guilty about the manoeuvre. He did turn serious and tell the psychiatrist that neither of his parents were enthusiastic about doing this, but they'd agreed that it was something they needed to do, especially his mother, who had described herself as broken to him and Sarah when she told them what she'd had to do and that she wasn't managing to let go of the shell she'd been hiding in for those twenty years. Chuck also mentioned that his father was aware that he had problems, but he was of the opinion that they were the result of the damage he'd done to his brain when he loaded an early version of the Intersect, and therefore didn't think that they were fixable, Chuck also pointed out, though, that his father had loaded a new version which had fixed the visible damage, and therefore it was his belief, and hope, that the issues that his father was struggling with now actually may be fixable with suitable therapy. While they were talking, Dr Dreyfus promised himself that he'd try to get some time with Chuck somewhere in this process to find out about what he'd been doing as he'd become quite the leader since he last saw him.

After they'd showed Dr Dreyfus to the suite he'd be using while he was here (it seemed easier to give him a suite so that he had a living area to use for discussions or sessions, rather than put him in a room and find a separate office), and introduced him to Chuck's parents, they left him to settle in, and went to review the Roc project and other projects under way. When they entered the Roc Haus, Sarah gasped, as she hadn't seen it since they started, and the Roc was almost done now, the thing was massive, almost twice the length of the Valkyries and you could almost fit a Valkyrie into the Roc's cargo hold. Chuck took them on a tour of the Roc, and while the cargo hold was impressive, they were more interested in the cabin features, the cabin was also quite large (though it could be broken up with moveable walls), made up of a central seating/lounge area with most of the walls lined with ranks of 2M x 1M x 1M soundproof sleeping alcoves, inter-spaced with a couple of bathroom/shower facilities, a kitchen and an operations/control room. While he was giving them the tour, Chuck explained that by using improved aerodynamics, the Falcon/Valkyries' electro magnetic barrier layer drag reduction process, up-rated all electric drive systems and hot helium mechanisms, they'd more than doubled the original aeroscrafts' speed and operational ceiling capabilities, and the new surface mechanism they used not only gave improved active camouflage (and the drag reduction system), it also allowed the entire skin to operate as quite efficient solar panels, so the Roc didn't need to carry a fuel load (though there were sizeable lithium battery banks that allowed it to fly through the night). As a result of the new developments, the Roc could carry several times what the Hercules could at over 2/3 (they were hoping for 3/4) the speed for unlimited distances, all in all their "cargo ship" was quite a bit better than they expected and it would serve their needs quite well.

After they had done what was necessary on the Roc project, they headed back down to wind things up with Dr Dreyfus, Chuck's parents and Bry, but Chuck heard a reference to "blonde" in a disturbing gloating tone of voice, and mentally rewound what that voice had been saying to listen to it. "Check out that blonde piece! I think I'm gunna like it here, give me a few days and I'll have her eating out of my hand and doing anything I tell her to. She won't be able to remember her own name or walk when I'm done with her, and with any luck she'll bring a friend so I can be a blonde sandwich. Yeah, I really think I'm gunna like it here." When he finished replaying what had been said, he quickly put his hand in his pocket and pulled his phone out, as if he'd just got a message, after a look over at the one who'd spoken he scrolled through the images of the new intakes and then called one of the officers in charge of their evaluation and told him to have the man taken to the gym for testing, along with the two members of the Security Force who'd recommended him. Getting off the phone, he told Sarah and Casey that he needed to see to something with the new recruits and he'd catch up with them down in Bry's suite. He could tell that Sarah didn't quite believe him from the look on her face as she agreed and kissed him, but she let him go.

While they wanted to trust their people, they'd all seen enough bad apples for blind trust to well and truly be a thing of the past. At that time they were going through the process of recruiting over twenty additional members of the Security Force (with the same backgrounds as the rest, Marines, Deltas, Rangers, Special Forces, Seals, Special Tactics Squadron etc) to replace the ones that they'd lost from the strike teams, the ones who'd died or almost died in the explosion, were reassigned to other security details etc. These solders (men or women) were approached only after being recommended by at least two of the current Council or Security people, they weren't given any details, just the outline of the nature of the opportunity in front of them, and if they agreed to try it out, they were brought in the same way Dr Dreyfus was, except that they were tranqed first, like the techs that worked for Graham. Once they were in the bunkers under the Barstow base, they were put through a month's intensive testing/review/evaluation process (or longer if required) like the original Security Force members had been, and if they checked out on capabilities, trust and compatibility with the group and were signed off by at least two Council members, they were accepted in, given access to the BI-Lite and the Council's gear. They were thoroughly scanned for bugs or trackers before they were taken to the base and they had absolutely no way of knowing were they were. They were also kept incommunicado for the entire time from when they were picked up, to the time they were either accepted or returned.

When Chuck walked into the gym the three men he'd asked for were there, along with the two who were primarily running the evaluation process, he just held out his hand for the man's file without any of his usual congenial chatter, which told four of the men that the recruit had managed to do something to make the boss very angry, and left the two who had supported approaching him for the security force wondering what was going to happen to them for their part in this? Looking through the recruit's test results, they were solid, but not exceptional, and he looked up at the two worried men standing off to one side, asking them why they had recommended him? As they were trying to present their cases for supporting this man, the one being discussed was looking Chuck over, from the way they were talking to him, he was obviously high up the chain, but he couldn't see anything that impressive about him, probably some silver spoon brat who's family's money was behind this operation, so he had a fancy position and got to push people around. The guy looked fit enough but nothing that exceptional, and he was obviously not military, so he had no place overriding real soldiers on matters of selection for the military side of the team. After Chuck had gotten the justifications from them the two referrers, he turned back to the man in question and waved the file in his hand, saying that he wasn't seeing anything outstanding about him here, and he hadn't heard anything that presented a compelling case, either.

At that the man tried to intimidate him by staring him down, so he quirked a brief wry grin and went onto the real issue "Also, I couldn't help overhearing you making some rather unflattering comments about some of our female personnel, and the nature of your comments about one in particular are unacceptable around here, so we will not be availing ourselves of your services." Looking at the others, he just said "Get him out of here." At that the recruit snarled at him that he got it now, he had the hots for that blonde and couldn't get anywhere with her, so he had to try and make sure he that he got rid of any real men who could give her what she needed, in hope that she'd get desperate enough to settle for him eventually. What sealed his fate, though, was his final comment. "I think I'll have some fun with Blondie before I go to show her what she'll be missing". Off to the side "Oh fuck!" was heard in at least three voices (possibly four) as the others realised what, and in particular who, this was about, and they were talking over each other frantically as they apologised and told him that the man would be gone straight away, but Chuck stopped them with a raised hand as he composed himself (the fact that he needed time for that was a major warning sign in itself), and then said in a deceptively controlled voice "No, let's give him a chance, shall we? If he can take me out in a session here (waving to the mats), he can stay in the evaluation process and see if he makes it through, otherwise he goes now." he looked at the one standing in front of him and asked "Does that sound fair?" The guy gave him a huge gloating grin as he nodded slowly, to the uninitiated it looked one sided, while about the same height as Chuck he looked about twice his size, like the Rock, and he was battle trained, so in his mind he was just going to destroy this worm in front of him and the others wouldn't be able to do anything about it because it was actually his idea, then he'd have his fun with the blonde. Chuck gave him a vacant smile and turned away to remove his jacket, weapons and anything in his pockets, along with his shoes and socks. One of the guys went through the motions of patting him over to ensure that there was nothing left which could injure either of them, while one of the other guys seriously went over the recruit, and DID remove rings from his hands and other things in his pockets. The recruit just thought that it was just an attempt to psych him out when the one patting him down (who'd actually been one of the people who'd recommended him) gave him a vindictive grin and told him "You're a dead man!".

When they were both ready, they went out on the mats and Chuck gave the traditional bow. The other guy tried taunting him with "Are you sure you don't want to chicken out and go running home to the little missus?", but Chuck just smiled coldly and shook his head without a word. With that the guy went on attack, tying to get the jump on him. To those who'd seen Chuck sparring with Sarah it was sorta like the opening phases of their sessions, but without the speed or finesse, Chuck would just block or deflect everything with ease or use it to initiate a throw to send him to the mats, he let that go on for about five minutes and it wasn't until the guy brought Sarah ("the blonde") up again in his taunts, thinking that it would throw Chuck off, that Chuck finally went on the attack. As he'd done in the fight with Shaw, he used the Intersect's knowledge of the human body to inflict maximum pain and suffering without doing any permanent damage, as well as dislocating nearly every joint on his body and hitting him with multiple nerve strikes that rendered him unable to move, though still being capable of feeling pain, but unfortunately for the blowhard the guy's taunts about what he would do to Sarah had managed to enrage him and he was on the verge of doing something permanent when a woman's voice crying "Wolf!" rang out in the gym. As always, Sarah's voice was about the only thing that could get through to him in that state and he immediately broke off, dropping him and stepping back. Sarah and Casey had been using their hard won skills to stand in a room, totally un-noticed (it was one of the non-fighting skills that they'd really struggled to learn off Chuck as it was a lot harder to pull off than anyone imagined), over by the door ever since Chuck had been telling the guy that his services wouldn't be required, and they knew that this had been a foregone conclusion from the point that he'd taunted Chuck about having fun with her. The ONLY reason that she'd stopped Chuck was to prevent him from doing something that he'd regret later. Sarah walked across the mats to face Chuck and stand on tip toe to gently kiss his lips, softly say "I love you." and kiss him again, then she turned and moved to the guy laying on the mats, gracefully hunkering herself down beside him and grabbing his hair to pull his head up to face her (as between the dislocated joints and the nerve strikes that Chuck had hit him with, he was totally incapable of moving his head himself) and look at her through his haze of pain, saying "For your information, I AM the little missus, he's more of a real man than you'd ever have a hope of being, and I'm not missing out on anything at all." With that she let go of his hair to let his head flop back onto the mat, distastefully wiped her hand on his shirt and stood to move back to Chuck, reaching up to kiss him again and grabbing his hand (with her "clean" hand), led him from the room. Casey looked at the figure writhing on the mat in pain with disdain and told the others to get the retard's joints reset and get him out of there ASAP before leaving himself. As Casey left he heard laughter from the men standing over the man on the mats, asking him whether he'd enjoyed meeting the Wolf?

In Bry's suite, Sarah sat Chuck down and went to get him a large drink, putting the drink in his hand she sat close beside him and took his free hand in her's, because even though he'd been all but pushed into the fight, she knew her man was already tearing him self apart with guilt for what he'd done, she and the others who'd been in the room wouldn't have had a problem with doing what he'd done (other than the actual act of managing to take him apart so efficiently and carefully that once all his joints were reset there would be no permanent damage in such a short time), but Chuck was different, he felt guilty about it, irrespective of how much he'd been pushed to start it. Bry came in from some other meetings and took in Chuck and the drink, along with Sarah's infinitesimal shake of the head and Casey signing that he'd fill him later, so he jumped into the organisational matters that they were supposed to be there for. While they were talking through those things Casey was sitting at a workstation behind them finding and capturing the video clips from the gym, and from the event that triggered the events of the gym (not that hard to locate the trigger, really, he had a good idea of when and where from when Chuck pulled his phone out, so he had little trouble narrowing it down from there, and when he did he was surprised that Chuck's reaction wasn't stronger than it was). When he'd captured both clips, he sent them to himself, Bry and Sarah, Sarah would want to know for damage control with Chuck, Bry needed it to explain the situation to others at the base, and he just wanted a copy of that incredible demolition job. One thing that the episode would do when it got out (as it would) was make the legend of the Wolf just that little bit bigger than life, both in the security force and in the outside world (they were good at keeping tight lips, but they were human, and some stories about the Council (never named) slipped out, most of those stories were about Wolf and Tigress, though the exploits of Bear and Leopard, and sometimes Panther, Lioness, Cheetah, Jackal or Vixen were part of the story, too. Without breaching their security, their legend was growing, and that legend was worrying, frightening, those who knew that these people were after them, as it should be).

As Bry could see that Chuck, at least, needed something to take his mind of whatever had happened, he asked Chuck to explain how the hell he did this, noting him stiffen when he threw up a video clip on the screen, only to relax when he saw what it was. Bry looked up surreptitiously at Casey, who nodded, so at least he'd be able to find out what the current mess was about. The video clip was actually from a recent government infiltration mission that Chuck had gone on with Kate, which had gone pear shaped. The dress Kate was wearing, though gorgeous and made of armour cloth, hardly covered a thing, so it gave her pretty much no protection at all. That meant that when the other side started a fire fight and the bullets were flying, Kate was in serious danger even if she did try to stay behind Chuck as she was told, and that was what led to the move that Bry asked about. When the other side started shooting, Chuck spun, slipping his suit jacket off as he did so and threading it up over Kate's left arm, draping the rest across her back and over her right shoulder so she that only had to slide her arm through the right sleeve to be largely covered by the body armour suit jacket as he came around, and he did this in no more than ten seconds (if that). It looked like a magic trick that they'd been practising for years, but Chuck somehow did it out of the blue without any preparation or participation from Kate, finishing his spin to crouch behind a barrier in an armour cloth shirt and body armour vest, his two pistols in his hands. After watching the clip a few times, they were all asking Chuck the same question, how the hell did you do that? Chuck just shrugged, it just happened because he needed to protect Kate as he would have protected anyone else in that situation.

When they'd wound things up there, they said goodbye to the family (including Bry) with hugs and kisses, wished Dr Dreyfus luck, and got changed into their flight/tac suits. Sarah and Casey took one of the Falcons back, while Chuck took his customised Horsefly straight back to the apartments. When Sarah and Casey got in about half an hour behind Chuck, he'd checked on the twins and was in the study, working. She came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him on top of the head (she loved the safe feeling that he gave her when he did that to her, but she rarely had the chance to turn the tables on him because he was so damn tall), asked him if he was OK? Chuck craned his head back to kiss her lips with a smile and said he would be. She kissed him again, telling him she'd go and get herself a little twins time while he finished up here (the "quickly" was implied but received loud and clear), he agreed, and with another kiss and an exchange of "love you"s she headed for the nursery.


	25. Reversals

**Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters not created here, thanks Wilf.**

Mary and Stephen's sessions with Dr Dreyfus were going well, and in less than a month they'd all agreed that they were seeing real improvement, which led to Mary asking Chuck a question that stopped him cold "What about Laszlo?"

While they were doing the cleanups of the Volkoff facilities, they ran across many of the people that they'd put away over the years (and that, in turn, prompted a thorough review of EVERYONE they'd put away, which brought them to the chilling discovery that nearly all of the dangerous adversaries that they'd put away had officially "died by accident" while they were in prison, including the ones that they re-captured or dealt with in the Volkoff operation), and one of those people was Laszlo Mahnovski. Laszlo was dangerous, because the life that the CIA and others had forced him into from a young age had driven him around the bend, but it wasn't his fault. Laszlo was a true genius (quite possibly even brighter than Chuck or Stephen), and when the CIA had caught sight of him at eleven they'd conned his parents into believing that they would give him what his parents couldn't, so they'd signed him over to the CIA program. He'd graduated college at fourteen, earned his first doctorate at seventeen, and he'd created most of the technological achievements for the CIA since Stephen had disappeared. What they gave him for all of that was that they'd locked him in a bunker like they'd threatened to do to Chuck (but back when Laszlo was still a minor) and cut him off from everything and everyone he knew, the only one he had much contact with was his handler, the bastard who had latched onto him at eleven and instigated taking his life away from him.

Being locked away in a hole in the ground, unable to talk to anyone but the bastard who took his life away as a child and pushed non-stop to create whatever toys or weapons of mass destruction the CIA wanted managed to strip away Laszlo's sanity and humanity and left him broken, was it any wonder that his grip on reality was so weak that he thought it'd be fun to drop a nuke on San Francisco? As soon as he'd finally escaped from the bunker they had him locked up in, he went back to the pier where he used to go as a boy and that was where Chuck found him (locked in a Guitar Shredder battle with that retarded Peter Pan, Morgan Grimes). After he'd had a few run-ins with Chuck and his handlers, Laszlo made an attempt at retaliation against what had been done to his life by trying to use the self destruct mechanism he'd designed into the Nerd Herder to blow up the pier where Chuck found him, but after the usual hiccups that they'd had back in those days, Chuck, Sarah and Casey managed to disarm the bomb and recapture him, after which he'd supposedly gone away somewhere where he couldn't hurt anyone (Chuck hated doing that to him, but he was too much of a danger to innocent people to be allowed to run around doing things like he did). Of course, the CIA and others just wanted to get their hands on him to make him keep creating what he'd been doing for them, so they'd faked his death to get him out of that prison, and then sold him off to the highest bidder, who just happened to be Alexei Volkoff.

When they got Laszlo out of the Volkoff facility, Chuck and the others were faced with the same dilemma that they had been before, Laszlo hadn't really done anything wrong himself, but in his mental state, he was too much of a danger to innocent people to be allowed to run around in public without supervision, so they relocated him to bunkers under the apartments in a suite that had no internal mechanisms that could be subverted, but the key difference was that this time, Chuck sat down and told him the cold, hard truth about why they couldn't release him yet. It wasn't a conversation that Chuck wanted to have, or that Laszlo was ready to listen to at first, but Chuck, Sarah and the rest of the girls (and even Casey) would come and sit (in the observation room at first, but later in the living area of his suite) and talk for a while every day unless they really didn't have a chance. The on-going doses of real human interactions with people who actually cared about him and what happened to him (which was a first for Laszlo) were slowly pulling Laszlo back into the real world, and it didn't take long for him to recognise and acknowledge that he was still a danger to others and therefore he had to be kept away from them just yet. What was key to his recovery, though, was the fact that he trusted that these people who currently had him actually wanted him to get back to "normal" enough to go back into the real world. Of course there was another problem for him (and once again Chuck was brutally honest about this), in that it wasn't safe for Laszlo to be out in the "real world". The government agencies, military corps and umpteen nefarious organisations around the world were desperate to get their hands on Laszlo to make him do for them what he'd been made to do for the CIA and Volkoff, and if he was out in the "real world" without the protection he needed, someone would almost certainly manage to find him and grab him (probably the American government), so he'd be back to where he was with the CIA and Volkoff Industries.

When the Barstow base was built, Laszlo was moved there so he could have more room and freedom. He didn't quite have free run of the base, but that was partly at his own suggestion, because on his good days he recognised where his head was on his bad days. When he wanted to he worked with Stephen on his projects, and two geniuses of their level working together were achieving truly amazing things. The best part of being moved to the Barstow base for Laszlo, though, was Mary, they'd bonded very quickly and deeply because Mary broke down when she saw what had happened to him and she'd thought about how easily that could have happened to Chuck at the same age. Perhaps if Stephen had disappeared earlier the CIA or others may have gotten their hooks into Chuck and sucked him into the system as a child prodigy like they did Laszlo, but while Stephen was there the CIA (well, Graham) wouldn't let anyone near Ellie or Chuck for fear of upsetting Stephen and putting him off his game, because they weren't about to let anything jeopardise the goose that laid the golden eggs.

When Stephen did disappear, the CIA (Graham) was focussed on re-acquiring him, rather than his son, so they kept hanging Ellie and Chuck out there as bait for Stephen rather than steam rollering over Ellie being the protective sister and mother (and the others that they had around them trying to protect them) to take Chuck, but for that though it could have been Chuck where Laszlo was now (well, Graham actually had other plans for Chuck but none of them knew about that at that time), and that realisation hit Mary hard, so she became the mother that Laszlo hadn't had since he was eleven because his parents buckled so easily to the CIA (largely due to the fact that they were having trouble handling having a son who was so far above them that they couldn't relate to him at all). It was Mary who convinced Laszlo to let Ellie run full tests on him to make sure that he was OK (because she knew all too well the sort of things that intelligence agencies did to keep their assets malleable). It was little surprise to anyone when the test results did show damage from the drugs the CIA and Volkoff would have been feeding him for at least ten years to keep him under control most of the time. Chuck and Ellie talked over what the options were when they saw the evidence of damage on Laszlo's brain scans, the best option that they could see for him came down to the BI, but Laszlo was still more than a little unstable at that stage, so the potential risks associated with letting him load it were daunting. With that in mind, Chuck, with Ellie's help, came up with another version of the BI database, with absolutely no skills or knowledge enhancements incorporated into it, all it should do (hopefully) was activate the health and healing mechanisms that they'd found to be enabled by the BI, so it would hopefully get to work on cleaning up the damaged areas of Laszlo's brain and improve his general health and fitness (the brain wasn't the only part of him adversely effected by the drugs they'd been feeding him to control him), but it shouldn't give him any additional skills or intel that would make him inherently more dangerous at that point.

When they'd created the BI-Med (as they'd tagged it) and had tested it enough to be comfortable that it was safe, Ellie (with Chuck to help where needed) sat down with Laszlo to go over the results of the examinations and scans she'd done on him, and to talk about the benefits that they, and in more particular Chuck, Stephen and Jeff, had received from loading the BI, showing him Chuck's, Stephen's and Jeff's scans and pointing out how the areas of damage had been progressively reduced and/or disappeared over time after they'd loaded the BI. Just as with everyone else, they left the decision about loading the BI up to Laszlo, and Ellie made sure she told him about the biggest downside of the BI, that the memories that you've managed to suppress because they were too painful tend to come back and give you nightmares until you can get them under control again. It didn't take Laszlo long to decide to load the BI-Med, as he trusted them, the Bartowskis and their extended family had given him more honesty and support than anyone else had his entire life, and he trusted them to be honestly trying to do the best for him in this. After Laszlo had loaded the BI, he did start getting the nightmares as Ellie had told him, but the damaged areas in his brain and other organs were clearing up fairly quickly, it took a few months for the healing to be largely finished, and Laszlo was much more stable and happy then, but that wasn't enough to heal him completely.

That was why when his mother asked "What about Laszlo?", Chuck couldn't believe that he hadn't considered him when he talked Dr Dreyfus into coming to see his parents, because Laszlo's situation was exactly the same scenario as he'd laid out to the psychiatrist in regard to his father, the physical damage was apparently healed, but he still wasn't quite right, and after the life Laszlo had had, therapy with someone who was capable and who cared about helping him was almost certainly what he needed. He went straight from his mother to Dr Dreyfus and laid out all of Laszlo's history, giving him access to Laszlo's files and asking him if he would see if he could work with Laszlo while he was here, too? It wasn't a hard sell with the psychiatrist, as Laszlo was another extremely interesting case (Sarah hadn't been embellishing when she'd told him that they had the best minds working with them), and he could see Chuck's commitment to helping Laszlo recover fully from what he'd been put through since he was a child, so Dr Dreyfus had another patient at the base, and he still wanted to talk to Chuck to find out what had triggered the changes to turn him into the decisive leader that he was now.

Under the concept of Yin and Yang, though, the universe needed something to balance out Laszlo's turn from a supposed evil genius into someone who was a force on the side of right, and that something was Langston Graham, most of the original Council members (and some of the younger ones) still had trouble accepting (or more to the point, admitting) that the former head of the CIA, who'd formed and guided many of their careers and many people in the intelligence community had looked up to, had in fact been working a dark game and playing all of them for fools all along. Sarah and Carina, of course, had no trouble accepting that the bastard was evil incarnate after what he'd put them through at his instigation when they were vulnerable teenagers (and in later years), and nor could Chuck after what had happened to both of them, but for the rest it wasn't anywhere near so personal and they mainly saw him as doing what everyone else in the game was doing if they had a chance. The questions about whether Chuck and Sarah were pushing the hunt for Graham for personal reasons rather than the war that they were engaged in led to a violent argument in the Council meeting that ended with the 2" thick conference table being split in two when Chuck pounded his fist into it and reams of paperwork being thrown across the room as he shouted "Yes, it's fucking personal, what he put my wife and my sister-in-law and god knows how many other women, girls, through makes me want to rip the bastard apart, but as you obviously don't care about that, this (throwing the paperwork under discussion at the General and others questioning him) should be quite enough evidence to convince even you that he is the one behind the organisation that YOU forced me to risk everything to bring me into this to fight. I've had it with arguing, either you're behind me on the matter of putting all our efforts into cutting the head off the snake and going after Graham, or you'll fight your fight without me!" With that he turned and walked from the room with Sarah at his side and Carina only a few steps behind them. Ellie looked at the others and said that she was with Chuck before standing and leaving, Casey and Zondra stood and said the same before she'd managed to leave the room, and Emma looked long and hard at her longest and dearest friends before saying "I stand with my son-in-law and daughter." and standing and leaving herself. When she'd left, Bry looked at the remaining council members at the table with an expression that indicated that he didn't want to have any part of them, let alone be in the room with them, and called for the vote on supporting Chuck's plan, immediately following that with "I vote Yea!" With tears streaming down her face, Mary choked out "Yea", as did Stephen. Bryan looked at the last two and said in a hard voice that the motion was carried ten to two, but Roan put up his hand to stop him before forcing out "No, eleven, I vote Yea." The General sat there shaking her head, and whispered "Unanimous, Yea." before collapsing onto the table in tears.

That meeting almost destroyed the Council, because Chuck and Sarah were already packing to leave by the time that Ellie and the others got upstairs to talk to them. They were going to take their children and get in Chuck's van to head off to the cabin that Casey gave them as a wedding present, well away from all this shit. It was less than a minute before Emma arrived to throw her arms around Sarah and Chuck and cry, and less than five minutes later when Bry arrived to tell Chuck "They've all agreed to follow your plan." Chuck nodded, his face hard, but it softened a little as he read the look on Bry's face tried to tell him that he'd always been on their side, and he nodded again, saying "I know, thank you." quietly.

It was about ten minutes after that that two very distraught women came upstairs and asked if Chuck would listen to them? He wasn't at all inclined to do so until Sarah forced him to, and the rest left the four of them to talk, but not before Chuck made a point of hugging Emma with love and then turned back to the woman who bore him and his godmother with a stony face. Mary started to speak but Diane stopped her, saying that this situation was her fault and she needed to rectify what had happened. She stood in front of Chuck like a sacrificial lamb before a rabid wolf, looking every bit as small and old as she was, but she looked him in the eye and began.

"As you know I have been in this business for over thirty five years, I was proud and inflexible when I started and I've done nothing but get worse as time went by. I love both of you (looking from Chuck to Sarah before returning her gaze to Chuck), and I was the one who pushed the rest of the Council into forcing you two to take on the mantle of leadership of the Council because you are the ones who understand what the real issues are and what needs to be done to succeed. With all of that, and the fact that I wanted to throw your mother off the Council for questioning your leadership, I have now done the same thing, only worse because I questioned your motives out of spite. The entire time I've, we've, been in this game, we've had it pounded into us that the existing protocols MUST be followed no matter what, and even though the rule books that are made up of those protocols were written by the other side to force everyone's hands in their favour, we (glancing at Mary) still salivate and bark when that buzzer goes off. On top of that, for as long as you've been in this business, you've been under my command, and my stupid pride arcs up whenever you don't defer to me, especially when you show me that you're right and I'm wrong. I'm not the spy that you are, either of you, but I am good enough to have managed to get to know all of your key triggers over the past seven years. That's why, when you were presenting the intel which showed that that bastard had been playing me and the rest of them for a fool for decades and that he's obviously behind what we're up against now, and it cut me to the core for being so stupid for the last twenty five years at least that I've had dealings with him, I came back with a stupid, petty and WRONG attack at the two of you that I knew would strike home, questioning your motives and professionalism, not that that's ever worried YOU (looking Chuck in the eye), because I could see that you were right and I felt so incredibly stupid, so I felt the need to hit out at you. What you've told us and your plan of action goes against every protocol that has been ingrained into us, and if anything that's all the more proof that you're right and those of us who are stuck in the past following the ways we were taught are wrong. Given that, I think that this shows us that we are, as I said to Mary last time, a major threat to the Council and it achieving the results that it needs to, for the sake of the world, and therefore I, at least, think that I need to leave before I endanger things any more. I know that Roan wishes to speak with you after this, and I believe that he will be saying something similar to you."

With that, she went quiet and Chuck looked at his mother, Mary drew a breath before starting. "Diane's right, I should know better than anyone what a monster Graham was, is, because I've been played by him for the longest, the evidence that your father and Jeff found seems to indicate that you and Eleanor were just a breeding experiment to try and create the perfect spy, so apparently I was being pimped out to your father as a brood mare, whereas my pride had been telling me that I was being selected to protect the CIA's top asset because I was the best." She looked Chuck in the eye before continuing. "Make no mistake, I was, and am, in love with your father, and I truly love you and Eleanor, but I was placed with your father primarily as a breeding experiment, and when I heard that it pretty much invalidated everything I thought I was. The fact that he took a technological genius that the CIA almost bankrupted itself to get control of and put him together with the top female agent that they had at that time purely as a breeding experiment shows that he's closer to being like Josef Mengele than anyone we thought he was. What he did to Sarah and Carina and god knows how many others to try and break them to do what he wanted just further shows how morally bereft he is. For all of that, just like Diane, I've still been salivating and barking whenever the agency's protocol buzzer has gone off, even though I know that you're right and they're wrong. The sessions with Dr Dreyfus are going well, but I still haven't let go of everything from Volkoff's world, either. Because of that, like Diane, I think that I need to get out of the way before I do more damage."

Chuck was looking frustrated and angry, he looked at Sarah for one of their wordless communications, and she nodded and leant in to kiss him, after that he pulled out his phone and sent a text to everyone saying "Downstairs NOW!" he looked at his mother and godmother and told them that they'd meet them downstairs, the first words he'd spoken since they'd come upstairs to talk to him.

Everyone else was in the common area waiting for them when Chuck and Sarah arrived with Jaqueline and Levi, putting them down in a quiet corner before moving to the group. When they were in front of the group Chuck turned to Roan and asked whether the discussion that he wanted to have was to apologise and tender his resign from the Council? "Well, yes, that's basically it Charles but.." "Denied" He looked at Diane "Denied", and looked at his mother "Denied" he looked at the group in general and said "I propose the motion that none of the Council be allowed to resign until we have that bastard Graham's head and have eradicated his organisation, all in favour?" He got eight "Yea"s in rapid succession, and he looked back at the three old spies, saying "Motion carried nine to three, you will stay and fight with us until we've taken that bastard and everyone associated with him down!" Diane and Roan looked a little stunned, but Mary was looking at her baby boy with pride, and softly said "Yes sir!" with a smile.

Then Chuck turned on his father, demanding to see the evidence of the breeding experiment that his mother had been talking about, that made the others turn and stare at him, but his tone had his father grabbing a keyboard to bring up the files that Chuck was asking for on screen as fast as he could. They were all asking what this was about but Chuck just held up his hand to shut them up as he scanned everything up on the screens, Sarah was doing the same thing and when they'd finished they turned to each other with expressions of dread and holding each other tightly. After standing there silently in each other's arms for five minutes, Chuck kissed Sarah on the top of her head and pulled back to wipe her tears away and they shared another silent communication before she nodded and he kissed her. With one arm around Sarah as she snuggled into his side, Chuck waved his free hand at the screens and said "This was the missing information which gives us the motivation for what's been happening (sparing a second to glare at his father), there was something that didn't make sense until now about why they put so much effort that mission to create the evidence they needed to force me and Sarah apart and why they kept insisting that Sarah take her babies when she ran." Ellie clicked onto what he was saying and grabbed a keyboard as he was talking. "They wanted Sarah, yes, because she's the best, but even more so Graham wanted our babies, Ellie and I were the first generation of Graham's breeding experiment, Jaqui and Levi are the second generation." At that point, Ellie managed to throw up Mary and Stephen's genetic test results, with Emma's and "Jack Burton"s beside them, the next row showed her's, Chuck's, and Sarah's results, and the third row showed Jaqui and Levi's. Once they were up there, Ellie quickly went through them, highlighting the areas that showed the progression from grandparents, to parents, to children of the key markers, and Carina's simple exclamation of "Fuck!" summed up what they were all thinking, Graham had not only put Mary and Stephen together for his breeding experiment, he had put Sarah and Chuck together as well, he'd just managed to luck out with Sarah being a natural pairing of exactly what he was looking for. If they weren't all struck dumb by what was in front of them, they wouldn't have heard Sarah's soft, cold voice as she said "That bastard will be dead before he ever gets anywhere near my children!" or Chuck's response "Our children, and yes, I'll make very sure of that!" Carina asked how the assassin fitted into that, as Graham wouldn't have gotten the babies if they died with Sarah. The look Chuck sent her was more contemplative than angry (a welcome change) as he mused that he wasn't sure, it could have been a knee jerk reaction to the Intersect Team being closed off to outside groups, and so possibly the reaction may have been of the nature of "If we can't get Walker and the children, we'll make sure that no-one can!", but the effects of the contents of that syringe pointed to something more personal and vindictive than that, so it was more probable for it to have been Goodman trying to get back at them by torturing Sarah to death." Chuck looked at Casey, saying "If that's the case Graham will be doing a clean-up on Goodman sooner rather than later, pick him up straight away so we can get what we can out of him." Casey nodded, asking "What about Decker?" Chuck shook his head, saying that there was no indication that they knew that Decker had been made by them yet, and he wasn't likely to be part of the purge on Goodman, so they'd be better off leaving him in place in hope to get something from his contacts, Casey nodded and went to a nearby workstation to set things in motion to grab Goodman. With that, Sarah buried her face in Chuck's chest and cried. The look that Chuck was sending his father's way over Sarah's head said that they would be having some VERY serious talks soon!

Chuck took Sarah under his arm and went to gather up the babies' bassinet and head upstairs, turning his head to look at Diane and tell her to get the table replaced, as it was a result of her fit of pique that got it broken, she timidly nodded and said that she would do it as soon as possible, Roan started to say something but the look that came his way when he did chilled his blood and stilled his tongue. Few of them had ever seen Chuck enraged before, this was the first time for most of them, and there was still enough rage left in him to let them see that "The Wolf" was, in fact, a very apt name for this normally very affable and caring man when he was pushed, and his family was threatened.

Chuck put Sarah to bed upstairs and laid down with her, for the first time in a while they had the twins in their room with them, as with this new piece frightening news, they weren't about to let them out of their sight. Sarah had cried herself to sleep on Chuck's chest, but when she woke alone a couple of hours later she'd panicked, and went looking for him. She'd found him in the study, and the way things were flashing all over the screens reminded her all too much of the way he was when he was in the burnout loop after the building blew up during Kate's rescue. Chuck turned his head distractedly to look at her when he heard her tentative "Chuck?", but the look of fear in her eyes cut through the borderline information overload haze and he jumped up to go to her, assuring her that he was here, he hadn't gone off again. Sarah collapsed briefly into his chest with relief before pushing herself back to look at the screens and ask what this was? Chuck waved at the various screens as he explained that he was reviewing all the other intel that they'd decided wasn't important in case there were any other bombshells there that they didn't know about that they needed to worry about, as well as searching the intelligence databases for any mention of Graham's breeding experiments, updating and expanding all the data and image searches for any hint of Graham or his known associates, and starting data and image searches for all the supposedly dead, but presumably working for the other side, ones that were no longer in prison one way or the other. Sarah looked at the screens wide eyed for a minute or so then looked back up at him and asked whether the searches would continue to run without him? At his questioning, drawn out "Yeah?", she said "Then come back to bed, I need you with me and so do our children." He apologised and quickly set everything up to run unattended before shutting down the screens and leading her back to their bedroom, as she wasn't shifting until she knew he was coming with her.

While Chuck was helping Sarah get some much needed rest, Casey, Carina, Zondra and a Council strike team were taking out what they needed to of the small army of CIA SAD teams and agents who were posted around the CIA Director's home so that they could extract him for questioning, leaving "We're coming for you!" scrolling across the screen on the workstation in his office when they left (after cloning the computer and laptop drives, his phone and every portable drive and USB stick they could find around the house and in the safe and copying every document they found). Most of the people who saw the message wouldn't have a clue who it was meant for, but they knew word of it would get to Langston Graham, and he was quite bright enough to understand that it was meant for him, they hadn't missed him by that much in Chicago when they started from over 2000 miles away, and he knew that they were after him now that they knew he was alive.


	26. Hide and Seek

**Looks like I may have lost everyone, so I'll probably start winding this one up now.**

**As it's probably finishing soon, and I want to get the relevant things out, parts of this will be darker than most will like.**

**Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters not created here.**

When they left the apartments, Casey, Carina, Zondra, Diane, Mary, Roan, Bry and Stephen went out to the airfield where Carina and Zondra's Falcon and the Valkyrie that brought the others were. From there they flew back to the Barstow base where the Falcon was quickly refueled while Casey, Diane and Roan transferred to the Valkyrie waiting with the Strike Team that was allocated to the operation to extract Goodman, then the two planes took off and headed to DC together. In DC, Diane and Roan went back to their "real" lives while the rest of the team headed for Goodman's residence. It didn't take long for them to scope out the CIA teams and personnel surrounding the residence, and while Casey liked to brush off anything CIA, he knew from Sarah, Zondra, Kate and Bry that they weren't all useless, so they had to be careful. One thing was obvious, they had Goodman scared (or at least someone did, it may have been Graham), because he had a small army there to protect him. Most of the CIA must be laughing at him by now, with the way he insisted on living the high life but always surrounded himself with masses of security. It took them about fifteen minutes to identify a sector of the perimeter where they could establish and maintain a safe corridor into the residence, and another twenty minutes to get through the security systems into the house. They made an effort to keep to non-lethal measures where possible on the outside forces, as they were most likely to be legitimate CIA forces, so the SAD personnel etc outside were tranqed if possible and then secured and stashed out of sight (and out of harm's way) without any weapons or coms gear in case they came out of the tranqs early for any reason. Goodman's Praetorian Guard inside the house, though, were almost certainly part of the same dirty bunch he was, so unless they were IDed as persons of interest, more permanent solutions were used on them. They were inside the house for twenty minutes, copying any and all data and intel that they could find and preparing the prisoners for transport, then they exited, resetting all security systems so that the only sign that they were there was the message on the screen, as well as the fact that Goodman and five Praetorians were missing, and the rest of the Praetorians were dead, of course. Goodman's family and the household staff were all tranqed and left there safe and sound, all they could say was that they hadn't seen anything and had woken up with a headache. It took them ten minutes to get out with the prisoners and the intel, resetting the security systems as they went, so they were on-site for a bit over an hour, unbeknownst to anyone.

Back at the planes, Carina and Zondra said their goodbyes to the others and flew back to Chicago to be ready to get up for work with Diana's FBI Task Force in the morning. Because Chicago was that much closer than Barstow, they were in bed before Casey and the Strike Team got back to the Barstow base, even with the drive back to their hotel from the airfield where they stashed the Falcon. It bothered Carina that she was still angry about the fact that Zondra was actually in bed with her brother, Tommy, she wanted to let it go and be happy for both of them, but she just couldn't do it.

Back at Barstow, the prisoners were unloaded and put in cells, still knocked out by the tranqs that they'd been shot with, Casey was going to stay and do most of the interrogations, though Mary insisted on having a go at Goodman, at least, and probably the key Praetorians. When Casey tried to say that he should do it, Mary looked him in the eyes, and what he saw in her eyes made him rethink which of them was more capable of ripping the truth out of a prisoner. Mary would never tell anyone just what she'd done in those twenty years with Volkoff, but what Casey just had a glimpse of when she lowered her mask for a moment to let him see behind it told him that she'd delved far further into the dark side than he had over those twenty years. Considering how much his past haunted his attempts to sleep, Casey had a new respect for the fact that Mary had managed to come back to their world as much as she had, and he deferred to her on this. As they needed to get the intel before it became useless, Casey started on the lower end of the ones they'd taken straight away, while Mary started with Goodman, and they worked their way to the middle. When they'd finished, Casey had a lot more blood on display, but the haunted look that Mary couldn't hide said that she'd gone far further than he had to extract the information from her subjects. It didn't sit too comfortably with Casey that he'd seen an all too similar look on Ellie's face, just after she'd injected the contents of the syringe meant for Sarah into the assassin's neck, it was quite obvious where that utter determination to do what had to be done when it was absolutely necessary (especially if anyone was coming after their family) in both Ellie and Chuck came from, as he was seeing that same look now in their mother (it also disturbed him that he'd thought of Mary as the mother-in-law at that moment, he hadn't considered THAT sort of thing in over twenty years, since Alex Coburn had "died" in fact). Mary caught both expressions as they crossed over Casey's face and sent a questioning look his way, but he just shook his head as if it was nothing, being around Ellie and Chuck for as long as he had been at least gave him the ability to cover up some things with that family. Both Mary and Casey had been feeding the intel into the system as they extracted it from the prisoners, and they had half strike teams bouncing around the country to hit as many locations as possible while they were still viable (hopefully).

At Barstow, the ones who'd disposed of those prisoners' bodies vowed to themselves NEVER to cross the agents on the council, especially Vixen, it was hard to believe that someone who could do what she did was a grandmother, though the fact that Wolf was her son explained quite a bit, after all, there was that recruit that he just took apart, the ones who were there said the guy was asking for it and had pretty much pushed him into it (the story was that it was something to do with Tigress), but it took the doctors hours to reset the joints in his body and get everything back in the right place. Not to mention the day that someone put "Hungry Like The Wolf" on the boombox as a joke (the sort of thing they often did when he was around, and he normally laughed at) when he was running exercises in the urban combat range and in less than two seconds he'd drawn his pistol, put a three round burst into it from over 50M away and re-holstered the pistol, without interrupting his conversation, breaking step, or even looking at the boombox. Normally Wolf was a nice guy, especially if Tigress was with him (though it was so hard to tell whether it was Tigress or Cheetah just by looking at them, those two HAD to be twins, but staring at them to try and work out which was which definitely wasn't a good idea, especially after some got a look at the image on Lioness and some of the others' phones for Wolf (Ellie had gone to get Chuck and Sarah out of bed one morning soon after Kate loaded the BI and was having the nightmares, and found them all in bed together, Sarah and Kate both wrapped around Chuck with looks of contentment on their faces. As much as she loved Chuck and Sarah (and Kate), Ellie couldn't resist taking pictures and sharing them with the other girls, because even though they understood all too well from personal experience the contentment that came from having your demons driven away so that you could get some relief from those nightmares, to anyone else the image would look rather more like one of post coital bliss, and them being thoroughly sated from a most satisfying three way) because if a number of the women on the Council had that picture of Wolf with the twins, they were obviously BOTH with him, so looking at either of them too much just wasn't smart), but there were times when he'd come back from missions or something had obviously happened when you REALLY didn't want to risk crossing him. Well, it showed that the old line about being careful of the quiet ones was certainly true!

Mary and Casey managed to pull quite a lot of leads out of the prisoners that they worked on, and raiding through the night meant that their teams managed to hit a lot of sites before they were cleaned out, so by morning the other side was looking more than a little ragged. They were hoping that that may just be enough to force some errors on their part, so they were hacked into satellites and servers all over the world (but especially North America) in hope that they'd get sightings of Graham or his key people if they started to run. What was left of the data that they pulled from Goodman's house was put into the system as soon as they got back to Barstow (they'd been sending through what they could while they were in the air), and Chuck, Sarah, Stephen, Emma, Jeff, Anna and Ellie were working through it as quickly as they could, Chuck had managed to get Sarah to let Ellie give her a sedative to calm her down, but she was determined to do her part, so they were set up with Ellie and Jeff in the Bunkers and had the twins in their bassinet beside them as they worked frantically to pull the information apart and send back directions for the hits to be made as soon as the necessary intel came out.

Bringing Anna on-board when things were ramping up had been Jeff's suggestion, and it had paid off quite well. As long as Chuck had been at the Buy More, Anna had been hiding her light under a bushel, because she'd been both in awe of him and pining for him the whole time. When Sarah came on the scene and it was obvious how hard Chuck had fallen for her, it really hurt Anna and she started sleeping around with anyone (even Morgan Grimes) in an attempt to bury the pain, but it wasn't really helping, so she gave up on that when Morgan had suddenly disappeared at the same time Chuck and Casey left. With Chuck gone, and Jeff still being drugged by Lester, Anna was the obvious one to take over the Nerd Herd, and when Big Mike forced her to take the job, she stopped hiding her ability and did a pretty good job of stepping into Chuck's shoes, she had also rejoined her old hacker groups and was back to making a name for herself in those circles, too. She was busy and successful in areas that counted to her and them, but she was lonely and unhappy, even more so after Jeff left too, after having gotten clean and back to the person he really was. That was why, when an amazingly stylish Jeff and Chuck turned up at the apartment she shared with a couple of other girls one night to talk, she was quite ready to listen. Given she took the two cute (well, one really cute and one OK) guys straight into her room, the other girls thought she was just back to her old ways and having a three way in there, something some of the cries coming from the room did nothing to dispel (it was actually Anna getting all excited about being offered a serious job in something that she was really good at and being asked to join their family, but it could have easily been taken as crying out during sex through the closed door). When they came out a while later carrying her bags etc and she told them that she was leaving (adding that she'd send the rest of the rent she owed), though, they thought that she'd given up and was going off to be these two guys' live in fuck toy and they tried to talk her out of doing this to herself. Anna grinned and waved to the guys to put the things they were carrying down for a minute as she sat down and explained that she used to work with Chuck and Jeff, and Chuck had just offered her a cyber security job at his company, Hunter Security. She repeated Chuck's story that the reason she was leaving was that they often worked through the night to avoid downtime for their clients' businesses, so Chuck included room and board in the package so that way no-one (especially the girls) was being put at risk by having to go home alone in the middle of the night. Chuck gave them his card and invited them to come down to the office and have a look to see for themselves that it was above board and that Anna was OK, and they went from being frightened for her to being thrilled for her in about twenty seconds flat. Once that was straightened out they took Anna back to the apartments to set her up in Jeff's old room. Anna shone in the team environment there, working well with the guys on the cyber side, as well as getting into the exercise and training regime pretty quickly.

As well as targeting the sites for the teams to hit, they were using the data they got from the subjects and resources collected to direct their on-line investigations, and they'd managed to ID and hack into quite a number of gateways and systems to suck data from them before the other side started pulling the plugs on them. Taking their gateways down when threatened must have been part of Graham and co's natural paranoia, because there was no way they could have detected Chuck's incursions (in that area he was the best, and Anna wasn't that far behind). Given Chuck and co's hacking ability, that meant that the only way the other side could have stopped them was to have a protocol in place to physically pull the plug on their gateways if they thought that they were faced with a technically savvy opponent, which they apparently did when they got the order to do so.

The overnight raids yielded quite satisfying dividends, the strike teams had instructions on what sort of equipment and intel to grab and bring back, and they also had the same lists of persons of interest that the team who'd captured Goodman had, so anyone expected to be able to give up good intel was tranqed and hauled back for "questioning", while others flagged as probably being on the other side but not of interest were eliminated (they'd unfortunately learned their lesson about how much use it was to try and imprison these people, and their records showed that they had a lot to answer for). As far as the image searches went, they didn't get a sighting of Graham, but they did get plenty of hits off of the "supposed dead" searches that Chuck set up after the Council meeting, and they had those sightings bunched in areas in Chicago and other cities, so they had locations to direct Diana's task force to over the next few weeks, starting with the ones that logic pointed to as the most likely to find Graham at. What the rest of the FBI task force didn't know was that they had a Council strike team waiting in the wings in case Graham did show at any of the sites that they were investigating, they were there to make sure that they took him in or took him down, one way or the other he wasn't going to be plaguing them any more.

As they were also getting a lot of hits in the Navy structure, they were feeding all that intel to Serval (another one of Sarah's sisters that they'd tracked down and brought on-board), Serval was Ellie Bishop, an NCIS Special Agent who had been buried in a dead end role in her previous job as an NSA Analyst for the crime of being far more brilliant than her bosses, her chance to get out of the NSA came when she was dragged into a high profile NCIS case because a threat paper she'd written years before was enacted exactly as she'd laid out, and she was asked to stay on after that case. The rest of the team found it easy to work with Ellie, because she was a lot like a cross between Sarah and Emma. Anyway, feeding the Navy related intel through to Ellie gave her the opportunity to work it into the NCIS case structure and investigate it. The initial talk with Ellie was a rather uncomfortable, as her mother was married with three sons when she was seduced by her father to get what he wanted from her, but her mother had came clean to her husband as soon as she found that she was pregnant and he'd stood by her and the baby. While Ellie was raised no differently from her brothers, they'd listed the name that her father was using at the time on her birth certificate (how Carina had found her), but didn't tell her about it before Sarah and Chuck went to talk to her and her husband. As soon as Sarah told her the story, Ellie got on the phone while they were still there and asked her mother outright whether it was true that she was the daughter of someone other than the man she'd called her father all her life? She was floored when her mother burst into tears and told her yes, it was true. Sarah and Chuck went to leave when Ellie broke down, but she stopped them, telling them that she just needed a few minutes to get herself together. While they were talking after that, Chuck suddenly grinned, making both Sarah and Ellie turn to give him a look of consternation. Chuck laughed at that and said "Well, there's no question that you two are sisters now!", but it was when Jake (Ellie's husband) laughed as well that they started to get angry. What diffused the situation was when Chuck took a picture of the two of them and then brought the image up on his phone and turned it around to show them with the identical one sided grimaces that they got on their faces whenever they were in that state. When they saw that picture, they had to laugh as well and concede the point.

The night they took Goodman was a major turning point in the fight they were facing, they had had to show their hand by grabbing Goodman, but what they got from his records and from "questioning" him and the other five gave them what they needed to hit Graham's organisation fairly hard before they'd had chance to cover up or hide. In addition to that, the piles of intel that they were getting from the gear and the people they'd grabbed in the raids on their sites, and from the systems that they got into before Graham and co pulled the plugs on their gateways, were giving them lots more locations and people to go after. Even though they hadn't managed to wipe them out (or find Graham) as yet, they had effectively crippled them for now, as they had been forced to shut down all their systems and shift any of their centres or people who may have been compromised as a result of the raids, and that was pretty much most of them. Added to the fact that they couldn't use any of their established secure communications methods for fear of them being compromised so they had to use less secure and more open communications (which the Council had access to by way of getting into the NSA's umbrella taps on all electronic and voice communications going through the US of A), and that as their people started to move they were being picked up on the various imaging systems that the Council were hooked into, it all meant that they were slowly tightening the noose on Graham and co.

Mary, Casey and Bry were doing most of the "questioning", though Carina and Zondra were processing the ones taken on the east coast (as with the night of the original raids, they had to action any intel they got ASAP to get in before the other side realised that their sites or people were taken and jumped to shut down or move whatever the ones taken or records captured had links to). The Council's strike teams and active agents were hopping around non-stop hitting locations as soon as they'd been identified, Chuck and Sarah were both off the active list for these operations, partly because Sarah was still on maternity leave, but more to the point because they were both working flat out to analyse the information and feed directions back to the others, and Chuck's Piranha hat was more important than his Wolf hat at that point, they needed him to hack into the gateways and systems to suck out whatever they could before they were shut down, as he'd told the President, the information gathering and analysis and planning that they could offer was more vital than their unquestionable skills in the field.

The interrogations were taking their toll on the ones doing them, they were among the best at getting information out of prisoners (well, Sarah had been right up there with Mary at one point, but she was off the active list for now), but none of them were the people that they'd been when they were gaining those reputations any more, and the stains that what they were doing was putting on their souls was something that they were having a very hard time getting past.

While they were doing that, Chuck, Jeff, Anna, Stephen and Laszlo were pulling apart the equipment that the strike teams recovered from the sites they hit to get what intel, references and leads they could from it, and once the encryption was broken on any drives or storage devices, the data on them and any scanned documentation was loaded into the system so that anyone available could go through it. Everyone knew that Chuck, Sarah, Ellie and Emma were the ones who would identify and get the most value out of any intel that they found, and that Diane, Mary, Roan and Bry were the ones who could recognise the historical references in the spy world and know where to look once something like that was found, but time was of the essence here, so EVERYONE went through whatever they found and tagged anything that looked interesting for follow up, and the main players would go back through everything as soon as time permitted to try and ensure that nothing had been missed.

The trigger pushed Chuck to snap was when he came across a series of sickening hardcore videos showing up to three guys (generally with oversized "equipment") at a time or devices, doing things to the people that he loved, the one that his entire world revolved around and his sister-in-law. Once he'd watched the video clips (especially the ones with Sarah) he sat there for a couple of minutes, incapable of doing a thing as the rage and disgust took him over, then as soon as he could function again he brought up the prisoner lists to identify which of them were attached to the facility that the recordings had been taken from and called Barstow to order them to stop the interrogations of the men from that facility and wait for him to take over! He quickly tried to ensure that he'd securely erased the videos (and any originals that he could find) to try and make sure that no-one would ever see them again, then threw on his flight suit, jumped into his Horsefly and made the fastest time he'd ever managed getting there. When he arrived, he found Casey was still interrogating one of the men from the facility and grabbed him, throwing him across the room and into the wall. Casey hadn't even had time to fall to the ground before Chuck had him by the throat, crushing it as he held him him off the ground and looked into his eyes as he quietly asked whether his instructions were unclear about the interrogation of these people? Casey knew that he was closer to looking death in the face at that moment than he'd ever been before, and he didn't expect to live through this, as he couldn't see any sign of Chuck behind the primordial rage that was blazing out of his eyes. Casey tried to choke out an answer as his consciousness slipped away, but he was still conscious, barely, when Chuck threw him away with a flick of the wrist to bounce off the door frame and into the corridor outside, closing and locking the door before he turned to the man on the table.

What the rest of them didn't know, and Chuck hadn't known himself until that moment, was that everything ever written or recorded about "enhanced interrogation" techniques was in the Intersect in Chuck's head, and he was accessing it, absorbing the complete works as it were, as he crossed the room to stand over the man strapped to the table. Casey only just managed to drag himself up to the observation window, and what he watched going on in that room absolutely horrified him, he was an experienced, competent and often considered brutal interrogator throughout his career, but what he saw that day made him throw up until there wasn't a thing left to bring up. Chuck went through all four men who had been taken from the facility where the recordings came from, extracting every secret and memory they had before he let them die, because it was the last man who was the one who knew about the recordings of Sarah and Carina (he'd actually been involved in their "special training", Chuck may have backed off and let Casey take over the interrogations again if that man had been earlier in the list, but he wasn't, so all four of them gave up every secret and piece of information that they'd ever known, in hope that Chuck would stop doing what he was doing to them). When Chuck told the final one that Sarah Walker was his wife after he admitted to knowing what the video clips were of, he'd thought that he'd be able to push Chuck into killing him quickly by goading him about what he'd done to Sarah and telling him how much she'd enjoyed it, but all he achieved by doing that was to ensure that Chuck kept him alive for a couple of hours after he'd extracted the last thing he had in his head, as he'd already repeated anything and everything that he could remember back to his childhood, in the vain hope of stopping the agony (just as the others had). Even with all the medical and "enhanced interrogation" knowledge in the Intersect being used to keep him alive, the man eventually died of blood loss and heart failure, as he'd broken several bones as he was spasming in agony while Chuck worked on him and the broken bones had pierced vital organs and arteries. When he was finished, Chuck just turned and walked out of the room, leaving the remains of the four in there.

Casey had stood and watched through the entirety of the four "interrogations", and made sure that the recordings of what Chuck extracted from the four men were saved so that some use could be made of them, though he made sure that the responses about Sarah and Carina and the noises that came from the last one after he stopped giving up intel were removed so that no-one but he and Chuck would ever hear them. When Chuck left, he walked straight past Casey as he stood there with tears streaming from his eyes and vomit down the front of his tactical suit, without a word or a glance, and he only stopped for a quick shower (with his "flight" suit on) to wash the blood off before he got back into the Horsefly and went back to Burbank. When he'd left the interrogation room Casey sent Sarah a text to tell her that Chuck had found one of the ones involved in her "special training" and had taken over the interrogation, and she went ballistic, calling him and demanding to know why he'd let Chuck go through that, only to be hung-up on, followed by a message which included picture of Casey's throat with the note "can't talk, he's pretty far gone". Looking at that, what she got from the image was that he'd tried to stop Chuck and had almost died for it (she'd seen men strangled to death with less damage with that), so she just sent back a text "how many, how long?", and sat down and cried when the answer that came back was "4, 9 hours". Sarah had known something was wrong when she'd woken from a sleep hours ago to find him and the Horsefly gone without a word and he didn't answer any calls, then when she went to trace him she got his position as being at the Barstow base, so she'd called there, but everyone kept telling her he was busy and couldn't take any calls, and evaded all her demands for answers. Now Sarah she was afraid, what was coming back to her, her husband that she loved, a robot, or something worse?

When Chuck walked in, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the top of her head, telling her that he loved her. She could still smell the blood on his suit even after the shower he'd taken in Barstow and he half saw her scrunching her face up, so he tried to pull away, to go and get cleaned up properly and get changed, but Sarah reached up to latch onto his neck and kiss him desperately. It was only when she'd managed to settle down a little that she felt brave enough to pull back and look him in the eye, dreading what she might see there, but while the look in his eye was tortuously haunted, it was her Chuck, she was so relieved as she pulled him in for another kiss. When she was willing to let him go, Chuck went for the shower and change of clothes that he'd been heading for before, hoping against hope that he could somehow put what he'd seen and what he'd done that day out of his mind, but accepting that there was little chance of that. When Casey came home later (as he couldn't conduct interrogations without being able to speak), Ellie wanted to know what happened to him, thinking that one of the prisoners had gotten free and attacked him, When she read "Chuck" she jumped up and started to rant and rave, but Casey managed to force out the word "Wait!", and finished writing. "He found videos that showed that we had some of the ones who forced the Special Training on Sarah and Carina, he sent a message to stop all interrogations because he was taking over but I tried to get them finished before he got there. I was still working on one when he arrived, he did this throwing me out." Ellie stared at him, saying, "He didn't, he didn't..." The look that Casey gave her was full of contempt that she was more worried about what Chuck might had done than what had pushed him to that act, so he went to close the door of their room before dragging her over to the computer on the side table, sticking a memory card into it so that he could access what was on it. There was one video clip that Chuck had missed erasing, perhaps because he was trying to block it out of his brain as it was of Sarah and it was one of the worst ones, the only copy left was now on that memory card. When Casey found that one and took it off the system, he went through the entire system to ensure that no other clips had been left. When he played the clip, it was less than fifteen seconds in before Ellie screamed "NOOOOOOOO!" and hid her face in his chest. Casey wrapped his arm around her and yanked the memory card out of the computer before writing "He extracted everything they had and it took long time, especially the one who was part of that, pity they didn't live longer", and holding the notepad up in front of her face. He loved her, but he wasn't about to let her judge Chuck for what he did to those animals without making her face what drove him to do it!

The information that Chuck had extracted from the four prisoners created a lot of work for the teams, as there was a lot to go through and they had to move on it quickly, just like they had to with the rest of the leads. It was actually one of the leads from the intel he'd extracted from them that almost got them Graham. Because they didn't have the resources or authority to openly run large scale operations in the USA, they were forced to rely on Diana's FBI Task Force. They'd directed the task force to the site that they'd located from the intel that Chuck extracted, but they didn't find anything of note there. The issue that arose later, though, was that when they went through the data and video that they extracted from the equipment recovered from the site, they saw Graham and a small security detail slip out the back when the site was breached because the FBI hadn't properly surrounded the site, and was too slow working their way through the building, if it was a Council hit, they would have had Graham, but the FBI let him go! At least that gave them another starting time and location to try another spiral search using satellites, security and traffic cams to have another go at tracking the bastard down.

After the "interrogations", just about everyone was too afraid of Chuck to say anything when he went off about things that were going wrong, well except for Sarah and Casey. After word got around the Barstow base from the ones who'd cleaned out that interrogation room, no-one outside the family was brave enough to say anything to the Wolf at all, the hardened warriors there who had been shaken by how far Vixen had gone to extract information were downright terrified of what they'd been told of the aftermath of Wolf had done. Ellie just broke down and cried whenever she saw Chuck, Sarah or Carina, and when Casey could talk again, he took Sarah aside to explain to her what had sent Chuck over the edge, that he'd seen the video clips of what was done to her and Carina in that training. Sarah went into shock at that, the thought that Chuck had watched that being done to her, but luckily Casey managed to force Ellie the doctor to preside over Ellie the distraught sister and she sedated her and maintained her professionalism enough to look after her after that.

Around this time, they had another issue that took resources away from the operation against Graham and co, because Kate's husband Adam was framed for leaking secrets to the Chinese, and as soon as he'd been extracted back to the States, he supposedly committed suicide in CIA cell before they'd had a chance to get to him to protect him. They knew that he'd been killed to cover up the identity of the real traitor, but even though they were launching an investigation into it to track the bastards who did it down and wreak retribution on them (hopefully clearing Adam's name in the process), none of that was much comfort for Kate, she had just lost the man she loved. A couple of the people on the Council griped about the fact that time was of the essence with the war against Graham now, but finding those who framed and killed Adam wouldn't bring him back. Those comments were never made more than once, though, because anyone who made them was quickly reminded of why Casey was still afraid of Chuck at that time when they were asked by a Chuck who still had a very edgy (if not actually crazy) look in his eye how they'd feel to be told that investigations of their own partner's deaths would have to wait until the big operation the finish because they weren't important? Any detractors stood down very quickly (or more to the point ran away) at that point. They threw the resources they needed into the investigations of the both original operation to frame Adam, and who'd had access to him in the CIA prison. They couldn't get any official access into the CIA records, of course, but with their team they had no trouble getting into the CIA's systems and taking what they wanted. The team who went to London found obvious evidence that Adam's flat had been broken into to plant the "evidence", which pointed to the CIA's London team being involved, and/or totally incompetent (both options were quite likely, even without Casey's opinion on the matter), and when they looked at the "evidence" that was collected, there was no indication that Adam had ever been anywhere near it. All of that begged the question, if the case against Adam and the circumstances of his "suicide" were so obviously fabricated, why wasn't ANYONE else asking these questions?

**A/N: If anyone has seen Ellie Bishop's entry into NCIS and questioned the believability of writing a paper and then being accused of doing it because it plays out exactly as it was written, don't, many years ago when I was back in the private sector I made enough of a nuisance of myself warning of the dangers of failing to properly secure the boundaries between two major networks that to shut me up they got me to write a paper detailing exactly what the risks were and how they could play out (like Ellie's paper). When exactly what I wrote happened six months later I was accused of architecting and launching the attack which took out over 50,000 computers (they were lucky, it could have been over ¼ million), but others investigating it established the fact that it only had happened because the controls that I was arguing for weren't in place, and that I didn't have access to launch the attack. The fact that someone (not me) leaked my paper to the customer's management and they forced my company to implement the controls I'd detailed didn't do me many favours though ;) So yeah, I can assure you that that exact scenario has happened, and in govt they're even more invested in pointing fingers and trying to make sure that someone else gets the blame than they are in the private sector. FWIW**


	27. Gotcha

**I was going to wind this up here, because obviously it isn't working for people, but I've decided that I'm writing it for myself now, and if no-one else likes it, that's OK. **

**Anyway, this will be continued so I can finish the threads that I have in play.  
**

**Once again, parts will be darker than most will like, and some parts perhaps too adult.**

**Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

Kate was obviously having a hard time dealing with Adam being gone, especially now that she knew that he'd died purely so that some other bastard could cover up what he was doing. She came in to Chuck and Sarah some nights when it was too much for her, but they knew that she was hurting all the time so Sarah insisted, and Chuck agreed, that she spend the nights with them. Kate resisted, but eventually she gave in to the inevitability of her sister getting her way when she had her mind set on something, and had to admit she got a lot of comfort from being with them, rather than being alone, it was much like when she was having the nightmares, they drove her demons away so she could get some peace.

One thing Ellie had never managed to let go of was the need to mother and control Chuck, and she was still barging into their bedroom at inopportune moments to talk about things that could have quite easily waited for a more appropriate time and place, this had been getting irritating for them for some time now. One morning when she did that when Kate was with them, Sarah told her bluntly that they would discuss the matter later, making it quite clear that she needed to leave, now, which she did in a huff. After she'd left, Sarah calmed down and tried to apologise to Chuck for doing that, but he stopped her with a kiss, saying that she was getting on his nerves with this too. Sarah started to say that she loved Ellie, but she just wished that they could do something to stop her barging in like that, then she broke off with a strange look, Chuck looked at the love of his life and asked "I'm not going to like this idea, am I?" She looked at him and said "Maybe, OK, probably not, but just hear me out, please?" (looking at both of them when she said that) Chuck looked at Kate to see if she had any idea of where Sarah was going with this, but she was obviously just as much in the dark as he was, so they both nodded tentatively to show that they'd hear her out.

Sarah's next words were NOT what either of them expected at all "What would Ellie do if she walked into a three way whenever she walked in here?" After about thirty seconds of "WHAT?"s and them all moving away from each other, they were all sitting on the bed, wide awake, and Chuck and Kate were giving Sarah incredulous, if not shocked, looks. She put her hand out to stop them and said that she wasn't actually talking about HAVING a three way (fixing her sister with a look and asking if she'd ever given any impression that she'd EVER consider sharing her husband with ANYONE?, to which Kate smirked and shook her head as she remembered some of her more searing episodes of jealousy just within the family). Chuck was looking rather unhappy with his wife as he said that she better tell them exactly what she WAS talking about then! Sarah's expression immediately changed to one of extreme contrition as she went to him and promised to explain, begging him to give her a chance to do so before he got too upset with her? As always he melted for her and pulled her into his arms, kissing her on the top of her head as he said "OK". While she wanted nothing more than to stay in his arms she needed to be able to see his face as well as Kate's when she went though this, so she sat up and moved away from him before she started talking. "We're all comfortable with each other, and can be around each other without embarrassment, right?" The others nodded tentatively. "You two are relatively comfortable with the degree of contact that you have to have on missions, because you trust each other to keep things to what's needed, aren't you?" Again, nods, a little more confident this time. "OK, what I'm proposing is really just an extension of that. Ellie won't start respecting boundaries and stop barging in whenever something crosses her mind unless she's really uncomfortable with what she expects to find when she walks in here." They looked at her expectantly, knowing that she was getting to the point now. "So what I'm proposing is that, whenever Ellie barges in here, she'll find us all naked and apparently doing things she doesn't want to know about, if that doesn't make her uncomfortable, I don't know what will!" Chuck looked at her in disbelief for a while and then responded. "Forget about Ellie, what about how we'll feel about being naked together and "doing things"?" He looked at Kate, saying "Kate, you're a beautiful woman and I love you, but I don't feel comfortable about looking at you when you're naked, or about you looking at me when I am." Kate smiled at him, because he was so sweet. "I understand that, and agree, Chuck, but Sarah may have a point here, I have no interest in doing anything with any man (you or anyone else) so soon after Adam was killed and I expect that it will take me a long time before any interest in that returns, but we ARE all comfortable together, there's nothing awkward when we're in bed together because we know what we are to each other, and as Sarah said, the same applies when we're putting on a show for the missions, we know what we are to each other, so if we have to kiss or rub all over each other, we can do that without it being awkward because we're comfortable with each other, if anyone can pull this off without it creating issues between us, it's us three, and quite frankly the way Ellie smirks sometimes when she comes in and we're all cuddled up together pisses me off, so I'd love to find a way to stop her doing that."

Sarah and Kate looked Chuck, this was all up to him, they could see that he was still uncomfortable with the idea, but on the other hand, he was getting just as fed up with the constant intrusions as they were, they'd invited Kate to sleep with them because they loved her and she needed comfort and support at the moment, Ellie just barged in whenever she felt like it if she had an idea, and it was a constant invasion of their privacy. Chuck's first nod was rather tentative, but the one after that was more positive, and he said "OK, you're right, the only way we'll stop her doing this is to make her too uncomfortable to come in here, so if you two are OK with this, I'll do it." Sarah wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him before pulling back with a smile to say "Thank you Sweetie." Still with her arms around his neck, she turned to look at Kate, so Kate knew what was coming when she looked back at her husband saying "Well, get your gear off then!" Chuck groaned and said "Yes dear." as he stood to remove his pyjamas. The girls dropped their's, too, and then they all climbed back into bed, getting cuddled up in their normal positions, but having two beautiful women snuggled up to you when you're all naked isn't really the same as it is when everyone's wearing something, and Chuck was getting embarrassed because he was getting aroused by them rubbing on him from either side. Sarah pulled his face around to make him look at her as she told him it was OK, he shook his head with tears in eyes as he started to say that he didn't know whether he could do it but she stopped his words with a gentle kiss, saying that there wasn't anything wrong with having an erection, but if he couldn't handle it, they'd have to find some other way to deal with Ellie's behaviour. Chuck relaxed a little at that but shook his head, saying "No, you're right, the only way that we're going to stop her doing that is to go through with your plan." She kissed him and told him that she was going to deal with the issue that came up so that they could relax. Chuck tried to stop her, saying that it was OK, but she kissed him again, telling him that she loved him and asked him to let her do this for him, please? As he could never win with her he sighed "OK", kissed her and told her that he loved her, then after one last kiss her lips headed South.

Chuck was still looking very embarrassed, so Kate leaned in to kiss him (chastely) saying "You're the sweetest man I've ever met, brother in law of mine!" At that moment, the door of the bedroom burst open again and Carina barged in asking "Hey, what's Ell..." She stopped as she took the scene in front of her in, the three of them were naked in bed, Sarah was giving Chuck a blow job, Kate was kissing Chuck and Chuck had his hand in Kate's crotch (well, not actually in her crotch, when the door opened he'd instinctively moved his hand to cover her, and Kate knew exactly what he was doing (being sweet and protective), and what his fingers were doing down there, that is, nothing). As Carina stood there with her mouth open, staring, Sarah looked up at her with one of her famous death glares and looked pointedly at the door to tell her to close it, NOW. When she'd done so, Sarah looked from her to the others, saying in a matter of fact voice that the plan they had for Ellie obviously wouldn't work with Carina, but kicking the shit out of her would. Carina could see that that idea was all too popular with the occupants of the bed and turned for the door but Sarah said "SIT!", pointing to the chair across the room, at the same time pulling the covers up past their waists, making sure that Chuck was properly covered.

Carina was rather nervous, sitting there with the three people in the bed glaring at her, so she tried to go on the offensive, asking what the hell was going on? Sarah was the one who responded, explaining that they were sick and tired of Ellie invading their privacy whenever she thought of something, and they'd come up with a plan to embarrass her enough to stop her doing that, but the plan they had for Ellie wouldn't work on her, so the alternate plan she'd mentioned was still on the cards for her, and it would also apply if she said anything to Ellie or anyone else about what was going on. Carina put her hands up in defeat, saying that she got it, if she barged in or told Ellie or anyone else what they were doing, they were going to kick her arse, but the point was that she didn't quite understand what they were planning in regards to Ellie? Sarah sighed and went over it again, making it clear that she thought she was dealing with an idiot. Ellie kept barging into their room whenever she had something she wanted to tell them, and it was pissing them off, so they were going to make it too uncomfortable for her to barge in for fear of what she was going to see, that is her little brother apparently having a three way with his wife and her sister, and they were going to keep up the act as long as it took for Ellie to be totally convinced that it wasn't ever going to be safe for her to barge into their room without knocking. Carina nodded, saying "For a start, what I saw when I walked in would DEFINITELY convince her that that's what's going on, so you've got that part nailed, but who don't you just ask her not to come into your room?" Sarah glared at her and asked "Don't you think we've tried? I've talked to her, and Chuck's talked to her several times, but while she'll apologise and agree to that when we talk, the next time something "important" pops into her head she just does it again!" Carina nodded again, but suddenly remembered what she'd come about in the first place "If you haven't started your plan yet? (the others shook their heads) Why was Ellie looking so upset and angry when I saw her earlier?" Sarah grimaced, saying that she'd basically told her to fuck off when she'd barged in, again, that morning. Carina matched her grimace and said that that would explain the way that Ellie was, and then standing up, she looked at them and shook her head with a grin, saying "Interesting solution" as she turned for the door. Sarah jumped in to remind her NOT to tell anyone about this before she opened the door, and she nodded as she left.

Around the same time that the other Ellie (Ellie Bishop) was welcomed to the family (and the Council), they'd also tracked down and welcomed two more of Sarah's brothers, as they were in similar roles to Ellie (Paul Williams was a Special Agent in the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, and Joe Sherman was an Army Counterintelligence Special Agent), and they also brought another brother into the fold, Greg Collins, when they stopped him from getting roped into a scheme with others in the Marine Recon units he was part of because he would have been taken out along with the rest of them (they were in the process of taking that operation down when they realised that he was coming into it), so they managed to keep him alive and out of prison, and he became their guy in the Marines, just like John in Special Forces and Mike in the Seals). Paul, Joe and Greg were, with Tommy, John and Mike, the exceptions to the rule among "Jack"s sons, in that they were decent men who did the right thing, most of the time at least. The trend that ran through Jack's children with the need for exciting and dangerous pursuits and constant challenges wasn't lost on any of them, most of them had either ended up following in Daddy's footsteps and going into a life of crime, or going into something like the military for the adventure. There were of course more than a few crossovers between the two sides (eg. Joe, Mike, Sarah and Carina all changed tacks in their switch to military or intelligence careers to avoid the downsides of the criminal life to some degree, while they'd only just stopped Greg going down the criminal path when they headed him off). About half of Jack's kids had been stuck with a life of crime because they had no prospects when they were born, thanks to the fact that their arsehole dad took off and left their mothers with nothing while they were pregnant. Some of the ones from money families, like Bryce, had gone "bad" because their own enjoyment and excitement were the only things that they cared about, and in truth, they all got bored all too easily, that was half the reason that Greg almost went in on that operation that they took down, because he didn't have enough challenges to keep him interested, though the money they were waving in front of him was a factor too. Part of the reason for the way things turned out was that about 2/3 of Jack's children that they'd "found" were male, and of those male children, from what they'd seen only about 1/3 of them showed any sign of being anything other than total douches like Bryce and their father. What that meant to them was that, so as far as they could see, they had the cream of the Jack Burton kids crop on board in their own little family now, six daughters (Sarah, Carina, Jill, Kate, Diana and Ellie), and six sons (Tommy, John, Mike, Paul, Joe and Greg). Because most of them had thought they were only children until the family tracked them down, it was taking them a while to get used to the idea of just how many "brothers" or "sisters" they had now, but they found that that it was growing on them quickly, having family to care about and who cared about you, it was nice.

While they were chasing Graham and co, they were still running the investigations into Adam Morgan's frame-up, and what happened in the prison when the CIA got him back to Langley, with their resources, it didn't take long for them to identify money transfers and links between Adam's West London Station Chief (and supposed friend) Steve Navarro, and the Chinese (who Adam had been accused of selling the US secrets to). Actually they didn't need to make much of an effort to root out the real traitor, because Navarro hadn't made any real effort to cover things up, he just ordered the people in his office to stop wasting time investigating the case when it was obvious that it was Adam, so they'd written it up the way they were told to, bagged the "evidence" and closed the case. Chuck had Casey and his mother queued up to fly to London and "question" Navarro when the time was right, they'd talked it over with Kate and she'd agreed that there was no point trying to get Navarro arrested, as his buddies in the CIA would just get him released, so she went along with the plan to take Navarro, "question" him and record his confession of everything that he'd done, then dispose of him (Chuck still had issues with killing anyone (with the exception of that bastard who'd been involved in doing that to Sarah and Carina and the rest of those involved on the list that he'd gotten out of him), but they'd seen way too much proof of the futility of trying to imprison these scum, the system was so corrupt that they'd be hard pressed to get them arrested, let alone getting any justice for Adam that way, so they were just going to get his confession about everything on record and then show him the same mercy he'd shown Adam). The ones who actually killed Adam and made it look like suicide were another thing though, they had some indications of who was likely to have been involved, but as yet they had no clear leads that would let them determine whether they were just hired by Navarro to kill him, they were buddies doing Navarro a favour, they were working with him on some other activities, or they and Navarro were all under orders from above in the killing. This was the reason that they were holding off on grabbing Navarro, because they were trying to nail down the people and reasons behind Adam being eliminated in the CIA facility before they tipped their hand, if they moved too early, the real people behind Adam's death may slip through the cracks as soon as they saw Navarro had been grabbed, and they didn't want any of them to get away. In the meantime a strike team and everything they'd need had been sent over to London in the Roc, once it was over there, the Roc could cruise around undetected until they were ready to make their move and when they were, Casey and Mary would be there in a little over two hours in one of the Falcons.

Back at Barstow, Mary, Stephen and Laszlo were still getting real mileage out of working with Dr Dreyfus, he'd been there for a few months now, and it didn't look like he had any intention of leaving. He wasn't just working with them, he'd been having sessions at some level with most of the people involved with the Council in the time he'd been there. When Mary and Stephen told him about that meeting in the Bunkers where Chuck had split the conference table, he'd collared him the next time he was there and got him to talk it out, so he felt a little bit better about the way things happened (because, being Chuck, he'd been blaming himself for what happened, just as he blamed himself for everything else). He also made Chuck talk to him after he'd interrogated the ones taken from the facility that the recordings had come from and managed to give him a little peace about that (along with Sarah and Carina after Casey had showed him that video clip (which Chuck and everyone else thought had been destroyed), so he understood just what they were dealing with). When Adam was framed and then killed, he'd spent time with Kate to help her handle the things that were happening better, he also had a good laugh with her about the game they were playing with Ellie, and helped her get over the residual upsets she had over what she and Chuck had been forced to do on that mission in Cabo. All in all, Dr Dreyfus had become a useful and valued part of their group, all the more so since he'd loaded the BI-Med to help his mind and body get up to speed with coping with the demands on his time and energy. While not directly involved in the plan, his influence was part of what drove Stephen to enlist Laszlo's help to come up with a creative solution to that broken conference table, together they came up with a resin that set like glass, and they had the two sides of the break in the table cleaned up (but generally left the surfaces as they were so it showed that it was a break) before they put it back together with a 20CM wide "glass" chasm through it (with a 1CM thick layer across the top and bottom to strengthen it). When Chuck saw the table he asked what the hell was going on, and Stephen stepped up to say that he'd thought it could be a good reminder that things that were broken could be fixed again. Chuck understood quite well what he was actually talking about, and quietly agreed that it was a good thing to be reminded of.

Operation Back Off was still running at the apartments, after a few days, they'd managed to get relatively comfortable with being naked in bed together, though Chuck still got embarrassed when he was aroused because Sarah and Kate were rubbing against him. The first time Ellie burst in on them like that, Sarah and Chuck were in the middle of enjoying a slow, satisfying kiss. As before, Chuck instinctively scooped Kate up and pulled her over on top of him so that her private parts weren't on display as the door opened, but the way she landed on him caused problems and she had to hiss "Stop moving!" in his ear, because the situation was dangerously close to what they'd been forced to do in Cabo. Chuck of course froze at that, which may have been the catalyst for Sarah's reaction, because she just sat up and screamed "Get out!" viciously at Ellie (who was just standing there staring at them with her mouth open and a horrified look on her face). Ellie ran out in tears, and Casey found her in their room a few minutes later, packing. That brought the whole thing to a head and Chuck went to explain what was going on, and why. When she heard that and thought about the probability of this exploding into a dangerous situation all too quickly, Carina called Dr Dreyfus in Barstow and he was flown down in one of the modified Horseflies to diffuse the situation. When he'd arrived, Ellie and Chuck were screaming at each other, and it basically it all came down to "How could you let her do that to me?" and "If you respected our privacy and keep your word, it wouldn't have come to this!". When the psychiatrist got there, he turfed everyone except for him, Ellie, Chuck and Sarah out and they sat down to talk through the matter. It took them well over two hours to get to a point where they were all satisfied with the outcome, Chuck and Sarah apologised to going to those lengths to get their point across to Ellie, and Ellie accepted that she was responsible for forcing them to go to such extreme measures, and apologised for putting them in that position, as well as promising NEVER to enter their bedroom again without a direct invitation from them and accepting that the responsibility for whatever happened if she "forgot" her promise again (as she'd made similar promises before) would be entirely on her head. They weren't happy with the way things happened and there was still a bit of friction between Ellie and Sarah over it (though Chuck was at last standing up with his wife and making it quite clear to Ellie that THEY had a problem with what she'd been doing, not Sarah), but they'd gotten everything out in the open so that they could move forward.

With the resources that they were hacked into now, the search from the point where the FBI task force let Graham escape was more productive than the original search trying to track him from where he'd done the video conference from. They managed to track him to another location and quietly send Carina and Zondra in with a couple of their fire teams to investigate, and what they got from the site gave them the direction to look for the next leg of where he went. They kept repeating that process as they tracked Graham, and the gap that he had was growing steadily smaller, they were getting more confident about their chances of nailing the bastard this time.

They eventually gave up trying to trace the people behind Adam's death in the CIA prison facility, they were confident of who was actually involved in his death, and they would deal with them, but they couldn't get any solid leads to anyone controlling them and Navarro, so they decided that it was time to "unleash the Casey" and sent him and Mary to London. With Navarro's overconfidence and negligible capabilities, it was ridiculously easy to take him as he left the CIA station without anyone seeing a thing. When he came to, he was strapped to a table in the Roc's cargo bay with Mary and Casey watching him. Of course he tried to make all sorts of threats to convince them to let him go, but they just ignored him as Casey tried to get Mary to let him do the interrogation, he'd seen her after the last series she'd of interrogations done, and what they had to do was impacting her more than it was him at that stage. Mary just shut him down, she had a better chance to get the deeper secrets out of him, so she was going to do it, besides, she regarded Kate as a daughter and he was going to pay for what he did to her and Adam. When Navarro heard "Kate" and "Adam", he redoubled his threats and demands to be released, but the grim smiles that faced him when they turned around terrified him (like most of his type, he was a coward). As his threats changed to begging, Mary advanced on the table and started work. Mary finished about an hour later, she'd gotten everything she could out of him, so Casey called the pilots to tell them to take them to the agreed position. When the word came over their implanted subdermal speakers that they were almost in position, Mary and Casey unstrapped Navarro and helped him off the table, telling him that they were letting him go as they led him across the floor. As the hatch in the floor opened in front of them, though, Navarro turned around and tried to run, only to find Mary standing in his way and she asked "Did you think you were going to fuck with my family and get away with it?", as she kicked him in the chest, throwing him backwards through the hatch in the floor. Casey gave the command to close the hatch as they quickly turned to watch the screen that was showing Navarro's fall, it only took a bit over ten seconds from when they turned, but the "crunch" as he plowed into the asphalt of the CIA West London Station's parking area was quite satisfying. With that, the Roc headed for an old airstrip just outside of London where they could offload Mary, Casey and the Falcon so they could head back to the States. While they were doing that, Carina and Zondra were leading another strike team to capture the ones involved in Adam's death in custody, extracting them to a farmhouse where they would be interrogated. Carina had a discussion with Zondra which was very similar to the one Mary had had with Casey, though she pointed out to Zondra that the subjects had killed her brother-in-law and made it look like he'd taken the coward's way out and committed suicide, and at that Zondra gave up arguing and took the less important subjects while Carina took the primary suspects. A few hours later they were done, and the subjects were taken back and strung up in their homes, whoever they were associated with should be getting a message by now, that someone was coming after anyone involved in Adam Morgan's incarceration and death.

When they analysed what had been extracted from Navarro and the others and followed up any leads that came from the intel, the consensus was that Navarro had been largely working alone when he stole the secrets and sold them to the Chinese, and framing Adam was just a ruse to get suspicion off himself. The ones who had killed Adam and set it up as a suicide just appeared to be dirty agents who Navarro knew would kill for a price. They couldn't find any evidence that this was part of a bigger plot, just greedy, murderous bastards who framed and killed an innocent man (though some of them had given up links to others running operations through the CIA, those other operations didn't seem connected to Adam's framing or death in any way). While none of this brought Kate's husband back, or made any part of it "better", at least she knew who'd killed Adam, and why, and that gave her a degree of closure, knowing that those responsible would not be doing the same to anyone else now.

They couldn't believe it when they saw the image which appeared to indicate that Langston Graham was still at the last location they'd traced him to using their iterative two step process (use satellites and camera evidence to track him to a location, hit the site, pull all possible evidence from the start and use that to get the necessary leads in regard to the direction to look for the next leg of his escape), the image wasn't definitive proof, as it was an unclear partial, but what it showed was an African American who appeared to be the right height, build and age and who sorta looked like him in the location they'd tracked him to, and that was enough for Chuck and Sarah to throw on their "flight" suits and run for the Horseflies that they had set up for them and were sitting in the courtyard for their use. They touched down at the location just as Carina, Zondra and the strike team were about to breach it, so they went in with them. The old Chuck wasn't there as they cleared the building with brutal efficiency to get to Graham, as this was their chance to end this. If they took Graham, Chuck was sure that they could extract enough intel from him to take down the organisation that he was one of the leaders, if not the overall leader, and with that they could finish the threat and step away from the life that they'd been dragged into, so there was no way that they were going to let Graham slip away again and THIS time, he wasn't going to be merciful to anyone trying to keep him from getting to Graham. For Sarah, it was even more personal than it was for Chuck, Chuck was raging internally about fact that he was the result of a breeding experiment, one that this bastard had even tried to extend to his own children, and what the animal had done to the love of his life and her sister, but Sarah actually remembered and felt everything that Graham had put her through, and she was going to kill him as slowly as possible as soon as they'd gotten what they needed out of him.

The amount of resistance that they were facing in that building only added to their confidence that they'd cornered Graham at last, as they had to fight every step of the way against vastly superior (numerically anyway) forces. Chuck was carrying two of the Hunter assault rifles and six of the "standard" Hunter pistols (he'd replaced the pair of hideaway pistols he normally carried in the small of his back with a third pair of "standard" pistols), and even with all that firepower, he was running low by the time they got the the office that they'd seen who they presumed to be Graham in. After they'd cleared the troops in the hallway outside the office, he pulled the one of the assault rifles that still had some 20mm railgun rounds left forward to aim at the door (looking down at the tranqed body of Mr Colt, who'd been in command of the troops guarding the door as he did so and murmuring "Do you find me imposing? I was going for imposing.") and took out the hinges and locks with five rapid shots. He let the assault rifle swing back as he leapt forward to kick the door in and enter the room, with Sarah at his heels.

They looked across the room at the man who they'd been told was dead, the monster who'd architected just about every disgusting thing that had been done to them and their family, and they wanted to kill him, but they knew that they really needed to take him in and extract whatever was in his head before they could do that, and there lay the problem, because while the 20mm railgun rounds that they both had at least a few of would get through the curved bullet proof barrier that he had around the desk he was sitting at easily, the tranq darts that they really needed to use to take him alive wouldn't. They quickly talked through their options over a private link (as he couldn't hear what they were saying inside their helmets), they should be able to use 20mm rounds to breach the barrier and then try to tranq him, but he seemed to be expecting that, because he was holding a pistol up under his chin, ready to shoot himself if they breached the barrier. As he obviously felt he had them over a barrel, Graham was having fun, saying that he presumed that it was Sarah and Chuck? (they were anonymous inside the suits and helmets, but nodded to keep him talking), at their confirmation he smiled that familiar oily smile and said that he was impressed that they'd found him, even if it had taken them a while, then went on "Obviously it was worth my putting up with those two pains in my arse that had you if it created you, though your sister has been a disappointment, I guess we'll have to clean up that mistake." He looked disappointed that the only reaction he got out of that was a slight stiffening in Chuck's posture, so he tried to get a reaction out of Sarah "You've turned out quite well, too, Sarah, or should I say Samantha? (casting a look Chuck's way to see if there was a reaction to that information, but Chuck just stood in an easy pose) "Luckily it didn't take much to get your father to jump at the bait I put out there so I could get him arrested and get my hands on you, my only real regret was that I didn't get to ACTUALLY get my hands on you, I had to use those other tools at the Farm and Larkin as surrogates to have you, so the only fun I could get out of it was to watch the videos they made, but those videos were good!"

He looked briefly at Chuck with malice as he said "If his father created me the proper mechanisms to reprogram you and wipe your memories without risking the primary plan I could have had you any way I wanted to and then just reprogrammed you to do the job, but the useless bastard went crazy on me and disappeared before he delivered, so I had to hold off. Oh well, at least my friends had fun with you on your "missions" in the early days." he looked at Chuck with a sickening smile as he said "You should be proud Bartowski, men who'd had the most expensive whores in the world said that your wife was the best fuck they'd ever had, though they did mention that she was a little over used." Looking back at Sarah he smirked as he saw her put her hand on Chuck's arm to hold him back as he said "So how was it Sarah, did hubby hit the spot after all those big studs you had, or wasn't he up to it? You remember the twins don't you? You were having a great time with them!" He wasn't happy that his baiting wasn't getting the reactions out of them that he wanted, and he really wished that he could see their faces, but he decided to try another tack "At least you were successful at your primary function, I needed your genes to go with his to create my perfect warriors and spies. Now when my people get their hands on your brats we'll use them to create what we need, thanks for giving us a breeding pair by the way, you made our job so much easier with that. You may have stopped us from taking them so far, but we'll get them, you can bank on that!" Chuck and Sarah had been trying to work out how to get through that barrier without giving Graham a chance to pull the trigger the entire time he was taunting them because they needed what was in his head, but that last line broke their resolve. Sarah brought her pistol up as Chuck shot at Graham's pistol arm through the barrier, the plan was to blow his arm off and prevent him shooting himself, while Sarah immediately tranqed him so they could get him out of there and stop the bleeding to keep him alive long enough rip what he knew out of his head, but Graham had obviously been watching them too closely, because as soon as they'd started to move, he pulled the trigger, spraying his brain matter across the wall behind him just as the round from Chuck's assault rifle took his arm off.

They fell into each other's arms and cried then because they realised that after all he'd put them through just then, he'd beaten them, at least as far as getting what was in his head went anyway. Chuck opened Sarah's helmet and his own so he could look her in the eyes when he made sure she was OK after what Graham had dragged her through again, she couldn't stop crying but she nodded, saying that she'd be OK, with that they shared a fragile smile and he pulled her into his arms again to kiss her. They were pulled out of their kiss by Carina's dejected voice behind them saying "Shit!" when she saw Graham's brains sprayed all over the wall, obviously by his own hand. That pulled them back to the job at hand, and Chuck turned to the Strike Team leader who'd arrived with Carina, telling him to have the troops collect every piece of electronic equipment, every storage device and every scrap of paper in the building and to have it all back in Barstow by morning, along with everyone that they'd managed to tranq when they took the building, it would have been easier with Graham's knowledge, but they'd pull this lot apart and end them, one way or another!


	28. Work To Do

**I've decided that I'm writing this for myself, so if no-one else likes it, that's OK.**

**No rights to any characters portrayed and all that crap.**

When they got home, Chuck and Sarah were feeling rather flat, because Sarah and Carina (and Chuck) had really felt the need to be the ones who killed that bastard, for what he'd done to Sarah and Carina if not for the other myriad reasons that he deserved to die a slow, painful death. The fact that he'd not only robbed them of that, but also the chance to rip out what was in his head so that they could make sure that all his disgusting schemes came to naught by blowing his own brains out before they could secure him left them feeling gutted. They were pretty much just going through the motions for the work they had to do, but when bedtime came and Kate didn't turn up, they shared one of their silent communications before Sarah, with a kiss and a "Thank you" to her husband, got out of bed and went to Kate's room to pull her out of her bed and lead her back to their's. As Kate climbed in beside Chuck, he greeted her with a hug and a kiss and then they all settled down into their usual positions, which WERE more comfortable for all of them now that they were back to wearing their usual sleepwear. Sarah's blue eyes met Kate's matching ones across Chuck's chest as she quietly said "Just because we've had a bad, well totally fucked up really, day doesn't change the fact that we're here for you and we don't want you to be dealing with your crap by yourself, OK?" Kate nodded with tears in her eyes and whispered "Thank you" as she reached across to hug them both.

The next morning they were back into their routine, get up before dawn, Yoga or Tai Chi session to warm up and then off on their morning "run", Anna couldn't quite keep up their "normal" pace, partly because she was still trying to get up to the fitness levels of the others, and partly because she was a short arse, at least seven inches shorter than anyone else in the group, but Jeff still struggled to match their "normal" pace, too, so they were OK with backing it off a little. After the "run" they'd have breakfast, get ready for work and head into the office (that was one benefit that they'd got out of Operation Back Off at least, spending that time together naked made the three of them (or more to the point Chuck) more comfortable with them being undressed around each other, so they could share the bathroom more easily now because the three of them ducking in and out and talking in various states of undress as they were trying to shower and get ready wasn't as awkward as it was before. There was no way that Chuck would have been able to talk to Kate about work etc while she was in the shower, rubbing moisturiser into her chest or doing any of the other personal maintenance things the girls did in the bathroom before, but now it was workable, at least).

They'd bought out the last business in the block that the Hunter Security was located in to extend their offices again after Kate came on board to fill in for Sarah and Jeff came into the fold, so this time they had plenty of room for further additions, there were no issues when Anna came on board, and they could easily take a few more on top of that of they were needed. The official numbers for Hunter Security were up to ten now, the original three of Chuck, Sarah and Casey had first been expanded with Ellie as a part time consultant, then Carina and Zondra as full time employees, Bry as another part time consultant, Kate as a full time employee (they went with Kate being Sarah's twin sister as the cover story for everyone outside the "family" as it saved a lot of explanation), then Jeff as full time, and finally Anna as another full time employee. Even if Sarah (still on part time maternity leave), Ellie and Bry supposedly only added up to one and a half to two full time equivalents, that meant that Hunter Security had three times its original personnel, so to keep up appearances they had to be doing at least three times the business they were originally doing, which cut into the time they had for their "government" work and Council work. They certainly didn't have to worry about finding enough work, they'd had to waive or farm out some of the government contract work and turn down private jobs to keep things to a manageable level. As far as the official Intersect Team went, even though they were out from under the traditional "intelligence" structure now, they were still on the intelligence community's radar, so the team had to keep up the same type of workload that they had previously with their numbers.

After the way Graham cheated them out of their retribution, Chuck was more aggressive on his "official" missions, as he was angry and he'd given up on, to a degree, the idea of capturing the minions of the other side if their records showed that they didn't have much chance of redemption. Recent history had showed them all to well that arresting anyone and putting them into the system was a waste of effort, as the system was so corrupt that they'd be spirited out of prison before anyone knew what was going on, and that's if they ever got there at all! The CIA was pretty much totally under the control of the other side, and they had control of enough of the NSA, FBI, Secret Service and the military to invalidate most efforts to do the right thing in those institutions as well, so Chuck had got to the point where he'd given up arguing against the logical approach with these people now, if they showed any real hope of redemption (it happened, albeit very rarely) or indications were that they had intel that was valuable enough, efforts would be made to tranq them and take them in for processing, otherwise their attacks were met by lethal response. Kate was Chuck's permanent partner for most missions now, Sarah had agreed with Chuck when she came back to work that they couldn't take the risk of both of them being together on the same missions in case something went wrong, so any time that there was a significant degree of risk (and nearly every mission they had involved significant risk, that was the nature of their work), they'd be partnered with someone else, given that Chuck was still the front man for the team, he was involved in the majority if the missions, usually with Kate (always when the mission involved playing romantic interests), while Sarah would work with one of the girls or Casey (she kept PDA or seduction (restricted to flirting) to an absolute minimum in any of her missions now, it had been hard enough finding someone acceptable to both of them for Chuck to play that role with in Kate, they weren't going to find anyone else that she was really comfortable working with like that. When it was absolutely necessary she and Casey could go through the motions up to a certain point without too much awkwardness, because she knew and trusted him and he was almost her brother-in-law, so he was as good as she could get for her "Kate"). The General allocated NSA strike teams to back them up for major incursions, but even though they only used teams that had proved trustworthy in the past, they always had Council fire teams using active camouflage along on any of those missions to monitor NSA personnel and be ready to provide protection FROM them in case they tried anything. The Council was determined that they weren't going to lose any of their people to betrayal!

Now that they'd lost their chance at what they'd been sure would let them tear down Graham and co quickly because Graham had blown his brains out before they had a chance to interrogate him (he'd been in the business long enough and had a nasty enough reputation in regard to interrogations that it was altogether possible that he was the one who'd coined the phrase "everybody talks", but if not, he was certainly aware of it), Chuck was obsessing about getting the intel that they'd wanted to rip out of him by other means, any means possible. Therefore, once Sarah and Kate were asleep he'd usually slip out (a feat in itself, getting out of the bed he shared with two well trained, experienced and very good agents without waking them), and would go into the office/nursery next door to work for a few hours at least, more than a few nights he'd still be in there with the twins when the girls got up. One night that Sarah woke to find him gone again (after Chuck had done that five nights in a row), she went after him. As skilled as Chuck was now, Sarah was back to pretty much his match, and he was distracted by the work he was doing, so she managed to check on the twins and move up behind him without him noticing until he felt her hands on his shoulders and she kissed him on the top of his head. When he quickly turned to look up at her, the wild and scared look she saw in his eyes wasn't Agent Carmichael or the Wolf, it was Chuck Bartowski, the sweet, insecure young man that she'd fallen in love with the day that she met him, because he'd made the world of a little ballerina who was too tall to stand in the spotlight all better again after her idiot father had totally screwed up recording her ballet recital. Sarah pulled his chair around and wriggled into his lap as she pulled his face to her's, sharing a slow, sweet kiss with him that was full of promise and love. When they reluctantly ended that kiss, he tried to explain why he HAD to find the intel that they needed, but gently saying his name a few times and now getting through his raving, she kissed him again, but short and hard this time, to get his attention, then said "Chuck, you're spiralling, calm down" looking into his wild eyes, she smiled and said "Don't freak out" That phrase, so common in the days when he was like this most of the time, managed to get through to him and he visibly relaxed, saying "I guess I haven't changed that much after all, have I?" in his trademark self depreciating manner. Sarah put her hands out to cup his face and pull his eyes up to meet her's before she answered "I hope not, this is the man that I fell in love with!" The next kiss progressed into a soft, tender session of love making there on the carpet as they expressed their love for each other, while trying not to wake up the twins.

Things got real complicated a couple of nights after that, everyone was on edge because of what had happened recently, none more so than Sarah, Kate and Chuck (Kate was still trying to deal with Adam's pointless death to cover another man's greed and treachery, and the fact that Graham had cheated them out of their rightful retribution was effecting Sarah and Chuck more than they could admit), so what started as a few drinks with the others ended up with all getting totally hammered, but it was the next morning when they realised that the dreams they'd had of a night of wild and wonderful sex WEREN'T dreams that it really hit them. They couldn't look at each other when they realised what they'd done, Chuck and Kate were wracked with guilt about what had happened, and Sarah felt equally guilty about the jealously she felt and how she wanted to hit out at them. Kate started saying how sorry she was and that she'd leave as soon as she could pack her bags, but Sarah stopped her, telling her that it wasn't anyone's FAULT, they were in this situation, that SHE was just as responsible for as she'd pushed for Kate to share their bed to help her get past the things that were bothering her and they felt comfortable together, as well as the whole sister-wife joke thing that she'd been flogging, and getting that drunk because they were all worked up about the shit they'd been through recently had just triggered what happened. She looked at Chuck and Kate, as she admitted that yes, she was upset that he'd had sex with Kate as well as her last night, but it just happened because they were drunk and they all cared for each other, loved each other, with that they agreed to close the matter and try to get back to the way things were before that night. (Also, to try and not let on to the others that they were pretending that nothing had happened. For a few nights Kate slept on the other side of Sarah (Sarah wouldn't let her go back to sleeping alone, especially as she was even more upset now), but that just felt wrong and they quickly went back to their normal, comfortable positions.)

Of course they forgot the golden rule, when have things ever been easy for them? About a month later, both Sarah and Kate started feeling uneasy, they tried to keep it from Chuck but he could see that something was up, of course he thought that it was friction between them because of that night and started blaming himself for what had happened when they were drunk, so after a few days of that, they sat him down to talk one night when they went to bed. Sarah and Kate looked at each other and Kate nodded to her, so Sarah turned to Chuck and said "Chuck, we're pregnant." At first he didn't register the "we're" and was over the moon, the twins had been a handful but the idea of having more children with the love of his life made him happier than he'd thought possible, but then the "we're" DID register and his face dropped. He looked at Kate and when she nodded he asked "From….?" and she nodded again, at that Chuck appeared to go almost catatonic, all he did was keep muttering "What have I done, what have I done?" over and over again. When they'd spent nearly ten minutes trying fruitlessly to get through to him, Sarah called Dr Dreyfus and got him sent down in a Horsefly again ASAP. When the psychiatrist arrived, Sarah had a confrontation with Ellie because she was demanding to know what was going on, and didn't appreciate being force-ably thrown out.

Dr Dreyfus was actually shocked when Sarah and Kate explained to him about the drunken night about five weeks ago where way too much alcohol had resulted in quite a bit of sex all round, which in turn resulted in two pregnancies. He was rather surprised (and pleased) to see that neither Sarah nor Kate seemed to have a problem with this, and in fact both looked happy about being pregnant (they'd had a few days to talk over the issues between themselves and get to the position that neither of them were blaming themselves, or each other, or Chuck, for what happened, and decide that the three of them could get through this together and everything would be fine), so the only problem was Chuck, who was obviously wracked with guilt because he'd not only slept with his sister-in-law when they were both blind drunk, but he'd also knocked her up, probably ruining both her life and his marriage in the process in his mind. As he realised that he'd need both of them to resolve this, he threw out the usual process of talking to Chuck alone, and as soon as he'd managed to get Chuck to recognise him, he brought the two women into the discussion. Over the course of the next hour, between them they managed to get Chuck to accept that a) both Sarah and Kate were pregnant to him, b) it was no-one's fault, they'd all gotten drunk and out of control, c) both Sarah and Kate were OK with the situation and were happy about being pregnant, and d) together, they were going to get through this and it was going to be OK.

Once they managed to get Chuck through his episode and Sarah convinced him that this changed nothing between them, he was the husband that she loved and they would be together forever, as far as she was concerned, they had the next issue to handle, telling everyone else (especially Ellie) about this, that would be fun. They called everyone together down in the Bunkers, and after they looked at each other for a bit, Sarah spoke up "You guys probably remember that night about five weeks ago when we got rather drunk?" She looked around as the others laughed and nodded. "Well, things got a little wild afterwards, and to cut a long story short, as a result of that night, we're pregnant." Most of them read that the same way as Chuck had at first, running forward to congratulate Sarah and Chuck, but Casey and Carina knew Sarah better than anyone and hadn't missed the "we're". When Ellie and the others realised that they were standing back and not saying anything, they turned to see them looking at Sarah with concerned expressions, and it finally clicked that they'd obviously been missing something. Ellie turned to Sarah and asked "What exactly do you mean by "we're", Sarah?" Sarah reached out to take Kate's hand in her's and pull her closer before saying "We, as in Kate and I, are pregnant." Ellie's face changed and she opened her mouth to say something to Sarah but Chuck curt her off when he barked "ELLIE!" in a tone which made it quite clear to her that if she said what he thought she was about to say (and he was absolutely correct about that), there was a good chance that she'd lose her brother, possibly forever, so she closed her mouth quickly. Chuck came forward to stand behind Sarah with his right arm around her waist, and his left arm around Kate's shoulders. He gently kissed Sarah on the top of her head as she started talking again in a small voice as she basically repeated their discussions of the morning after their wild, drunken night, and the one they'd just had with Dr Dreyfus.

It was obvious that Ellie still wanted to say something caustic about Sarah, or Kate, or both, but it was just as obvious that Chuck wouldn't forgive her for doing that, and he spoke up "Let it go El, we made a mistake one night while we were drunk" He looked down at Sarah and Kate and said "The sex between Kate and I, nothing else was a mistake." before looking up again at Ellie. "You stayed with that bastard who cared about nothing but the sex for years, and even married him. Considering that you have no idea how many other women he screwed while he was with you and SOBER, and given that you had plenty of proof of what he was like, you're hardly in any position to look down at us for what happened. And no, we weren't having three ways before so you can stop looking down your nose at Sarah and Kate, and me, we just got really drunk and it happened because we're close and the situation triggered it, but I'm not gong to deny Kate or my child with her to satisfy anyone's narrow minded view of things." Things were quiet after that, and to change the subject Carina asked asked how they were going to handle the story for Kate's pregnancy, and Kate spoke up for the first time. "We've been talking about that, Adam's only been gone for about nine weeks so it's still feasible for me to be just finding out now that I'm carrying his child, if my child obviously looks like Chuck it may be difficult, but very few people know what Adam looked like, so who's to know that it isn't Adam they took after? We've (looking up at Sarah and Chuck) been talking about the fact that we'll need to move to somewhere bigger, because we're going to stay together so that my child can grow up knowing their father as well, Chuck thought that it may be time for us all to move, or if others don't want that, we can just move by ourselves. The others started looking at each other and went to speak but Kate continued. "But we don't need to decide that now, it's just an idea that we've started thinking about."

They were quiet when Kate finished and Sarah spoke up "Carina, will you be Chuck's partner while we're out of action?" Carina grinned, asking "Oh, so you trust me with Chuck NOW, do you?" Sarah grinned back as she said "Yeah, now that you have Jeff I trust you not to try and steal my husband, and Kate and I wouldn't want anyone else looking after our babies' Daddy." Chuck cut in at that "Hey, right here guys, in case you've forgotten I can actually look after myself nowadays!" She looked up at him and smiled, saying "Yes, I know how how good you are now, but you're very precious to me and your families and we'd feel better knowing that we have people we trust there to cover your arse, now that she'd less likely to be coveting your arse." She added with a smirk, but she turned serious again as she asked Carina "Will you do this for me, for us?" Carina smiled back at her, saying that she'd be honoured to step into Kate's role and make sure that the father of her nieces and nephews was safe.

When everything was settled they sent Dr Dreyfus back to Barstow with their thanks, and the others came to them quietly, individually or in couples to tell them that their vote was to move with them when the time came. They were a little surprised when Ellie and Casey were next after Carina and Jeff (who'd done so straight away) to come up to say that they'd be coming with them, if they'd take them. Chuck looked at Casey over Ellie's head to see whether this was his call (the silent communication worked almost as well for them as they did with Sarah, due to the years that they'd been working as a team), but he shook his head infinitesimally and looked down at Ellie to say that it was Ellie's idea. Zondra and Anna came up soon after the couples to say that they were in for the move, too, so they were looking for something big.

Telling the rest of the Council, and especially Emma, Mary and Stephen that both Sarah and Kate were pregnant to Chuck wasn't much fun. As expected, it wasn't Emma who was the most enraged that Chuck had "cheated" on Sarah with Kate, it was Mary. Sarah had been hesitant to tell her mother, but she decided that she had to do it before she heard from someone else, so she went over and sat down with her to tell her exactly what had happened, and just as Chuck had predicted, Emma was more interested in making sure that they were OK together than focussing on a mistake they made when they were drunk. With Mary, though, no matter what anyone told her she kept going on about it until Chuck refused to have any contact with her until she dropped the matter.

It actually didn't take long to find a secluded 15 bed, 18 bath mansion up on the cliffs in Malibu that they managed to pick up at a good price. They sent the teams in to re-skin the aboveground portion and make it as secure and attack proof as possible, while at the same time they had an extensive bunker complex built underneath and added defence systems around the property. With the extra rooms, it wasn't hard to talk Emma into moving in with Molly, and get Bry to move in as well, so everyone in LA would be under one, safe, roof. Another advantage of the Malibu site was that they had room to land Valkyrie in the yard, even two at a time when they relocated or ripped out some of the gardens and trees to make optimal use of the lawn area. What to do with Echo Park when they moved was a problem, the general consensus was to keep it as a base in town, but Stephen and Laszlo were brainstorming ways to destroy the complex (and bunkers) without endangering anyone or requiring too many difficult explanations. The problem with that was that the only plan that seemed at all workable was to for them to demolish the complex (and bunkers) and build a block of units in its place, which would take a lot of effort and money, and they just didn't think that it was worth it, especially as there were advantages to having a base in town as well.

With all the exciting (if maybe a little disturbing) baby news and getting ready to move home, they still had their jobs to do, and with Sarah and Kate being pulled out of dangerous roles as soon as they found that they were pregnant, the workload went up straight away. The General used the pregnancies to reduce the mission load of the Intersect team a little, changing the focus a little more to intel gathering, they still had two active male and two active female field agents, and Sarah and Kate were quite capable of handling all the support requirements, so they still could handle their mission requirements with adjustments. Kate found that she was as happy as Sarah was about the fact that she was benched from active roles in both Intersect Team and Council missions pretty much as soon as the pregnancy was confirmed, but at least she had Sarah to help her through it, they both accepted that they had an over-protective baby daddy, but that was just part of his charm, so they didn't mind that much. On the Council missions, they had more resources available, as Anna and Jeff were up to speed enough to go along on the missions, and Bry and Mary were close enough to be on hand, too, so they effectively had twice the personnel for Council missions than they did for Intersect Team missions. At least the girls weren't being restricted in their Hunter Security jobs (beyond doing anything overly strenuous, anyway).

One thing that Sarah WASN'T happy about was that Chuck was still being aggressive on missions, perhaps even more so than he was after Graham shot himself. She wanted to sit down and talk to him about, but she thought she had a good idea of where this was coming from, on top of the concerns that they'd had that it was going to be harder to track down and root out Graham's organisation now that he'd killed himself so they couldn't rip all of his secrets out of him, Chuck was now worrying about the fact that Sarah and Kate were more vulnerable now that they were pregnant, and barring problems, they would have more children to worry about soon along with Jaqui and Levi, so consciously or not, she was pretty sure that Chuck was trying to stamp out every trace of the other side before they could endanger their family. As a husband and father, she certainly couldn't argue about that as a concept, but what Sarah and the others DID have a problem with was the risks that Chuck was taking to follow this path. Whenever they went into a building or facility now, she could hear the others calling to him to slow down because he was charging ahead to take on whatever threats there were, and THAT was what she was going to be talking to her husband about, because she had to remind him that her life wouldn't be worth living if he did something stupid and got himself killed.


End file.
